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Photo, Print, Drawing "Cliff Palace, Mesa Verde National Park," Colorado (Vertical Orientation) by Ansel Adams.

About this Item

Title

  • "Cliff Palace, Mesa Verde National Park," Colorado (Vertical Orientation) by Ansel Adams.

Summary

  • In 1941 the U.S. National Park Service commissioned noted photographer Ansel Adams (1902-84) to create a photographic mural for the Department of the Interior Building in Washington, DC. The theme was to be nature as exemplified and protected in the national parks and national monuments of the United States. The project was halted because of World War II and never resumed. The holdings of the Still Picture Branch of the U.S. National Archives include 226 photographs taken for this project, most of them signed and captioned by Adams. Photographs of Kings Canyon National Park were taken in 1936, when establishment of the park was being proposed, and added by Adams to the mural project. The single photograph of Yosemite was a gift from Adams to the head of the National Park Service, Horace Albright, in 1933. Shown here is a view of Mesa Verde National Park, which was established by Congress and President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906 to "preserve the works of man," the first national park with this objective. Mesa Verde, Spanish for "green table," was home to an ancestral pueblo people for over 700 years, from 600 A.D. to 1300 A.D. The park protects over 4,000 known archeological sites, including 600 cliff dwellings.

Names

  • Adams, Ansel, 1902-1984 Photographer.

Created / Published

  • [place of publication not identified] : [publisher not identified], [1933 to 1942]

Headings

  • -  United States of America--Colorado
  • -  1933 to 1942
  • -  Cliff dwellings
  • -  Indians of North America
  • -  Indigenous peoples
  • -  Mesa Verde National Park -- Colorado
  • -  Nature photography

Notes

  • -  Title devised, in English, by Library staff.
  • -  Original resource extent: 1 photograph (black and white).
  • -  Original resource at: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
  • -  Description based on data extracted from World Digital Library, which may be extracted from partner institutions.

Medium

  • 1 online resource.

Source Collection

  • Ansel Adams Photographs of National Parks and Monuments, 1941-1942

Digital Id

Library of Congress Control Number

  • 2021669744

Online Format

  • compressed data
  • image

Additional Metadata Formats

IIIF Presentation Manifest

Rights & Access

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Credit Line: [Original Source citation], World Digital Library

More about Copyright and other Restrictions

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Cite This Item

Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.

Chicago citation style:

Adams, Ansel, Photographer. "Cliff Palace, Mesa Verde National Park," Colorado Vertical Orientation by Ansel Adams. United States of America Colorado, 1933. [Place of Publication Not Identified: Publisher Not Identified, to 1942] Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2021669744/.

APA citation style:

Adams, A. (1933) "Cliff Palace, Mesa Verde National Park," Colorado Vertical Orientation by Ansel Adams. United States of America Colorado, 1933. [Place of Publication Not Identified: Publisher Not Identified, to 1942] [Photograph] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2021669744/.

MLA citation style:

Adams, Ansel, Photographer. "Cliff Palace, Mesa Verde National Park," Colorado Vertical Orientation by Ansel Adams. [Place of Publication Not Identified: Publisher Not Identified, to 1942] Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/2021669744/>.