Win a copy of Carleton Watkins: Making the West American

5 chances to win a copy of Tyler Green’s new book

View from Round Top, Cloud Scene, Looking East from Azimuth, Alpine County, 1879. Collection of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.

Hey book geeks! I’m teaming up with University of California Press to give away five copies of Tyler Green’s Carleton Watkins: Making the West American this week…Who wants it?

About the book

Carleton Watkins (1829–1916) is widely considered the greatest American photographer of the nineteenth century and arguably the most influential artist of his era. He is best known for his pictures of Yosemite Valley and the nearby Mariposa Grove of giant sequoias.

Watkins’s photographs helped shape America’s idea of the West and helped make the West a full participant in the nation. His pictures of California, Oregon, and Nevada, as well as modern-day Washington, Utah, and Arizona, not only introduced entire landscapes to America but were important to the development of American business, finance, agriculture, government policy, and science. Watkins’s clients, customers, and friends were a veritable “who’s who” of America’s Gilded Age, and his connections with notable figures such as Collis P. Huntington, John and Jessie Benton Frémont, Eadweard Muybridge, Frederick Billings, John Muir, Albert Bierstadt, and Asa Gray reveal how the Gilded Age helped make today’s America.

Drawing on recent scholarship and fresh archival discoveries, Green reveals how an artist didn’t just reflect his time but acted as an agent of influence. This telling of Watkins’s story will fascinate anyone interested in American history; the West; and how art and artists impacted the development of American ideas, industry, landscape, conservation, and politics.

5 chances to win

Submission is FREE and you have five chances to win :

• Comment on my Instagram post »
• Retweet my Twitter post »
• Comment on my FlakPhoto Network post »
• Share my Facebook page post »
• Comment on my FlakPhoto Books post »

I’ll draw 5 random winners from the comments and retweets on Tuesday, January 8. I’d love for more people to hear about this — tell your photography friends about the giveaway? Good luck!