A President in Yellowstone: The F. Jay Haynes Photographic Album of Chester Arthur’s 1883 Expedition
By Frank Goodyear
July 26, 2018
5:30 p.m. – Presentation
6:30 p.m. – Reception and Book Signing

F. Jay Haynes, The Chester Arthur Party in Yellowstone, albumen silver print, 1883. (Library of Congress)
Join special guest Frank H. Goodyear III for his presentation on his book A President in Yellowstone: The F. Jay Haynes Photographic Album of Chester Arthur’s 1883 Expedition. A book signing and reception, with appetizers and cash bar, follows the talk, which explores the history and significance of President Arthur’s month-long overland journey taken just eleven years of the establishment of Yellowstone National Park.
When Chester Arthur left the White House on the morning of July 30, 1883, he began a trip that would be longer than any other he had ever taken. His destination was Yellowstone National Park, which had been established by an act of Congress in 1872. His host and primary guide was Philip Sheridan, the famed Union general who then served as commander of the Military Division of the Missouri. Photographer F. Jay Haynes joined the month-long journey as the presidential party traveled northward from the railroad depot in Green River through the Wind River and Teton ranges into Yellowstone. To commemorate the expedition, Haynes created an album of photographs from their travels. This lecture is illustrated with images drawn from the album.
About our speaker
Goodyear is the co-director of the Bowdoin College Museum of Art in Brunswick, Maine. A graduate of Princeton University (AB), and the University of Texas at Austin (MA, PhD), he has done research in the history of photography, American art history, and the history of the American West. He is the author of a dozen scholarly essays and six books, including Red Cloud: Photographs of a Lakota Chief (2003), Faces of the Frontier: Photographic Portraits from the American West, 1845–1924 (2009), and, with Joel Dinerstein, American Cool (2014).
Goodyear’s most recent project concerns Winslow Homer’s relationship with photography, which is the subject of a new exhibition at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art this summer. He authored A President in Yellowstone: The F. Jay Haynes Photographic Album of Chester Arthur’s 1883 Expedition in 2013, with support from the Yellowstone Foundation.
This event is hosted by Linda & Reid Murchison and Anne Young & Jim Nielson in memory of Harriet & Ed Spencer, longtime supporters and cherished friends of the Center.
Seating is limited, so please consider arriving early.