“Is he always like this?” Johnson whispered.
“Lovely weather,” Gall said, and smiled. “Good day to you, sir.”
And William Johnson was back out on the street.
Learning Photography
Johnson wanted nothing more than to escape the terms of his wager and this impending expedition. Marsh was obviously a lunatic of the first order, and conceivably dangerous as well. He fixed on having another meal with Marlin, and somehow extricating himself from the bet.
Yet that evening, to his horror, he learned that the wager had become notorious. It was now known broadly throughout the College, and all during dinner people came to his table to talk about it, to make some small comment or joke. Backing out now was inconceivable.
He realized then he was doomed.
The following day he went to the shop of Mr. Carlton Lewis, a local photographer, who offered twenty lessons in his craft for the outrageous sum of fifty dollars. Mr. Lewis was amused with this new pupil; photography was not a rich man’s pursuit, but rather a shifty business for people who lacked the capital to embark on a more prestigious livelihood. Even Mathew Brady, the most famous photographer of his day, the chronicler of the Civil War, the man who photographed statesmen and presidents, had never been treated as anything but a servant by the eminent subjects who sat for him.
But Johnson was adamant, and over a period of weeks he learned the skills behind this method of recording, introduced from France forty years earlier by the telegrapher Samuel Morse.
The process then in vogue was the “wet plate” photographic technique; in a darkened room or tent, fresh chemicals were mixed on the spot, and sheets of glass coated with a sticky, light-sensitive emulsion. The newly made wet plates were then rushed to the camera and exposed to the scene while still wet. Considerable skill was required to prepare an evenly coated plate, and then to expose it before the plate dried; later development was easy by comparison.
Johnson learned with difficulty. He could not carry out the steps fast enough, with the easy rhythms of his teacher; his early emulsions were too thick or too thin, too wet or too dry; his plates had bubbles and dripped densities that made his pictures amateurish. He hated the confined tent, the darkness, and the smelly chemicals that irritated his eyes, stained his fingers, and burned his clothes. Most of all he hated the fact that he couldn’t master the craft easily. And he hated Mr. Lewis, who tended to philosophize.
“You expect everything to be easy because you are rich,” Lewis would chuckle, watching him fumble and swear. “But the plate doesn’t care how rich you are. The chemicals don’t care how rich you are. The lens doesn’t care how rich you are. You must first learn patience, if you wish to learn anything at all.”
“Damn you,” Johnson would say, irritated. The man was nothing but an uneducated shopkeeper putting on airs.
“I am not the problem,” Lewis would reply, taking no offense. “You are the problem. Now come: try again.”
Johnson ground his teeth and swore under his breath.
But as the weeks passed, he did improve. By late April his plates were uniform in density, and he was working swiftly enough to make good exposures. His plates were crisp and sharp, and he was pleased as he showed them to his teacher.
“What are you pleased about?” Mr. Lewis asked. “These pictures are wretched.”
“Wretched? They are perfect.”
“They are technically perfect,” Lewis said, shrugging. “It means merely that you know enough to begin to learn about photography. I believe that is why you came to me in the first place.”
Lewis taught him now the details of exposure, the vagaries of f-stop, focal length, depth of field. Johnson despaired, for there was so much more to learn: “Shoot portraits wide open with short exposures, because the wide-open lens has a soft quality that flatters the subject.” And again, “Shoot landscapes stopped down with long exposures, because people wish to see a landscape sharp both close and at a distance.” He learned to vary contrast by changing exposure and subsequent development time. He learned to position his subjects in the light, to change the composition of his emulsions on bright and dull days. Johnson worked hard and kept detailed notes in his journal—but also complaints.
“I despise this little man,” observes one characteristic entry, “and yet I desperately want to hear him say what he will not: that I have learned this skill.” Yet even in his complaint one notices a change from the haughty young man who a few months earlier could not be bothered to learn to sail. He wanted to excel at his task.
In early May, Lewis held a plate up to the light, then inspected it with a magnifying glass. He finally turned to Johnson. “This work is almost acceptable,” he allowed. “You have done well.”
Johnson was elated. In his journal he wrote: “Almost acceptable! Almost acceptable! Nothing said to me was ever so sweet to my ears!”
Other aspects of Johnson’s demeanor were changing as well: despite himself he was beginning to look forward to the trip.
I still regard three months in the West in much the same way I would three months forced attendance at the German Opera. But I have to admit a pleasurable, growing excitement as the fateful departure approaches. I have acquired everything on the list of the Museum Secretary, including a Bowie knife, a Smith & Wesson six-shot revolver, a .50 caliber rifle, sturdy cavalry boots, and a geologist’s hammer. With each purchase, my excitement grows. I have mastered my photographic techniques passably well; I have acquired the eighty pounds of chemicals and equipment, and the hundred glass plates; I am, in short, ready to go.
Only one major obstacle now stands between me and departure: my family. I must return to Philadelphia, and tell them.
Philadelphia
Philadelphia was the busiest city in America that May, nearly bursting with the vast crowds that flocked to attend the Centennial Exposition of 1876. The excitement that surrounded this celebration of the nation’s hundredth anniversary was nearly palpable. Wandering the soaring exhibition halls, Johnson saw the wonders that astonished all the world—the great Corliss steam engine, the exhibits of plant and agriculture from the states and territories of America, and the new inventions that were all the rage.
The prospect of harnessing the power of electricity was the newest subject: there was even talk of making electrical light, to illuminate city streets at night; everyone said Edison would have a solution within a year. Meanwhile there were other electrical wonders to puzzle over, particularly the curious device of the tele-phone.
Everyone who attended the exposition saw this oddity, although few considered it of any value. Johnson was among the majority when he noted in his journal, “We already have the telegraph, providing communications for all who desire it. The added virtues of voice communication at a distance are unclear. Perhaps in the future, some people will wish to hear the voice of another far away, but there cannot be many. For myself, I think Mr. Bell’s tele-phone is a doomed curiosity with no real purpose.”
Despite the splendid buildings and enormous crowds, all was not entirely well in the nation. This was an election year, with much talk of politics. President Ulysses S. Grant had opened the Centennial Exposition, but the little general was no longer popular; scandal and corruption characterized his administration, and the excesses of financial speculators had finally plunged the nation into one of the most severe depressions in its history. Thousands of investors had been ruined on Wall Street; Western farmers were destroyed by the sharp decline in prices, as well as by harsh winters and plagues of grasshoppers; the resurgent Indian Wars in the Montana, Dakota, and Wyoming Territories provided an unsavory aspect, at least to the Eastern press, and both Democratic and Republican parties promised in this year’s campaign to focus on reform.
But to a young man, particularly a rich one, all this news—both good and bad—merely formed an exciting backdrop on the eve of his great adventure. “I relished the wonders of this Exposition,” Johnson wrote, “but in truth I found i
t wearingly civilized. My eyes looked to the future, and to the Great Plains that would soon be my destination. If my family agreed to let me go.”
The Johnsons resided in one of the ornate mansions that fronted Philadelphia’s Rittenhouse Square. It was the only home William had ever known—lavish furnishings, mannered elegance, and servants behind every door. He decided to tell his family one morning at breakfast. In retrospect, he found their reactions absolutely predictable.
“Oh, darling! Why ever would you want to go out there?” asked his mother, buttering her toast.
“I think it’s a capital idea,” said his father. “Excellent.”
“But do you think it’s wise, William?” asked his mother. “There’s all that trouble with the Indians, you know.”
“It’s good that he’s going, maybe they’ll scalp him,” announced his younger brother, Edward, who was fourteen. He said things like that all the time and no one paid any attention.
“I don’t understand the appeal,” his mother said again, an edge of worry in her voice. “Why do you want to go? It doesn’t make any sense. Why not go to Europe instead? Someplace culturally stimulating and safe.”
“I’m sure he’ll be safe,” his father said. “Only today the Inquirer reports on the Sioux uprising in the Dakotas. They’ve sent Custer himself to put it down. He’ll make short work of them.”
“I hate to think of you eaten,” said his mother.
“Scalped, Mother,” Edward corrected her. “They cut off all the hair right around the head, after they club you to death, of course. Except sometimes you’re not completely dead and you can feel the knife cutting off the skin and hair right down to the eyebrows—”
“Not at breakfast, Edward.”
“You’re disgusting, Edward,” said his sister, Eliza, who was ten. “You make me puke.”
“Eliza!”
“Well, he does, Mother. He is a revolting creature.”
“Where exactly will you go with Professor Marsh, son?” his father asked.
“To Colorado.”
“Isn’t that near the Dakotas?” asked his mother.
“Not very.”
“Oh, Mother, don’t you know anything?” said Edward.
“Are there Indians in Colorado?”
“There are Indians everywhere, Mother.”
“I wasn’t asking you, Edward.”
“I believe no hostile Indians reside in Colorado,” his father said. “They say it’s a lovely place. Very dry.”
“They say it’s a desert,” said his mother. “And dreadfully inhospitable. What sort of hotel will you stay in?”
“We’ll be camping, mostly.”
“Good,” his father said. “Plenty of fresh air and exertion. Invigorating.”
“You sleep on the ground with all the snakes and animals and insects? It sounds horrific,” his mother said.
“Summer in the out-of-doors, good for a young man,” his father said. “After all, many sickly boys go for the ‘camp cure’ nowadays.”
“I suppose . . .” said his mother. “But William isn’t sickly. Why do you want to go, William?”
“I think it’s time I made something of myself,” William told her, surprised by his own honesty.
“Well said!” said his father, pounding the table.
In the end his mother gave her consent, although she continued to look genuinely worried. He thought she was being maternal and foolish; the fears she expressed only made him feel all the more puffed-up, brave, and determined to go.
He might have felt differently, had he known that by late summer, she would be informed that her firstborn son was dead.
“Ready to Dig for Yale?”
The train left at eight o’clock in the evening from the cavernous interior of the Grand Central Depot in New York. Finding his way through the station, Johnson passed several attractive young women accompanied by their families, but could not quite bring himself to meet their curious eyes. Meanwhile, he told himself, he needed to find his party. Altogether, twelve Yale students would accompany Professor Marsh and his staff of two, Mr. Gall and Mr. Bellows.
Marsh was there early, walking down the line of cars, greeting everyone the same way: “Hello, young fellow, ready to dig for Yale?” Ordinarily taciturn and suspicious, Marsh was here outgoing and friendly. Marsh had handpicked his students from socially prominent and wealthy families, and these families had come to see their boys off.
Marsh was well aware that he was serving as a tour guide to the scions of the rich, who might later be properly grateful for his part in turning their young boys into men. He understood further that since many prominent ministers and theologians explicitly denounced ungodly paleontological research, all research money in his field came from private patrons, among them his financier uncle, George Peabody. Here in New York, the new American Museum of Natural History in Central Park had just been chartered by other self-made men such as Andrew Carnegie, J. Pierpont Morgan, and Marshall Field.
For as eagerly as religious men sought to discredit the doctrine of evolution, so wealthy men sought to promote it. In the principle of the survival of the fittest they saw a new, scientific justification for their own rise to prominence, and their own often unscrupulous way of life. After all, no less an authority than the great Charles Lyell, friend and forerunner of Charles Darwin, had insisted again and again, “In the universal struggle for existence, the right of the strongest eventually prevails.”
Here Marsh found himself surrounded by the children of the strongest. Marsh privately maintained to Bellows that “the New York send-off is the most productive part of the field trip,” and his thinking was firmly in mind when he greeted Johnson with his usual “Hello, young man, ready to dig for Yale?”
Johnson was surrounded by a cluster of porters who loaded his bulky photographic equipment aboard. Marsh looked about, then frowned. “Where is your family?”
“In Philadelphia, si— Professor.”
“Your father did not come to see you off?” Marsh recalled that Johnson’s father was in shipping. Marsh did not know much about shipping, but it was undoubtedly lucrative and full of sharp practices. Fortunes were made daily in shipping.
“My father saw me off in Philadelphia.”
“Really? Most families wish to meet me personally, to get a sense of the expedition . . .”
“Yes, I am sure, but you see, they felt to come here would strain—my mother—who does not completely approve.”
“Your mother does not approve?” Marsh could not conceal the distress in his voice. “Does not approve of what? Surely not of me . . .”
“Oh no. It’s the Indians, Professor. She disapproves of my going west, because she is afraid of the Indians.”
Marsh huffed. “She obviously knows nothing of my background. I am widely respected as the intimate friend of the red man. We’ll have no trouble with Indians, I promise you.”
But the situation was altogether unsatisfactory for Marsh, who later muttered to Bellows that Johnson “looks older than the others,” and hinted darkly that “perhaps he is not a student at all. And his father is in shipping. I think nothing more need be said.”
The whistle blew, there were final kisses and waves for the students, and the train pulled out of the station.
Marsh had arranged for them to travel in a private car, provided by none other than Commodore Vanderbilt himself, now a whitened eighty-two-year-old tucked into his sickbed. It was the first of many agreeable comforts that Marsh had arranged for the trip through his extensive connections with the army, the government, and captains of industry such as Vanderbilt.
In his prime, the crusty Commodore, a hulking figure in a fur coat worn winter and summer, had been admired by all New York. With ruthless and aggressive instincts, as well as a sharply profane tongue, this uneducated Staten Island Ferry boy, the son of Dutch peasants, had come to control shipping lines from New York to San Francisco; later he took an interest in railroads, extending his mighty
New York Central from the heart of New York all the way to burgeoning Chicago. He was always good copy, even in defeat; when the secretive Jay Gould bested him for control of the Erie railway, he announced, “This Erie war has taught me that it never pays to kick a skunk.” And on another occasion, his complaint to his lawyers—“What do I care for the law? Haint I got the power?”—had made him a legend.
In later years Vanderbilt became increasingly eccentric, given to fraternizing with clairvoyants and mesmerists, communing with the dead, often on pressing business matters; and though he patronized outrageous feminists such as Victoria Woodhull, he still chased girls a quarter of his age.
Some days before, New York newspaper headlines had proclaimed “VANDERBILT DYING!,” which had roused the old man out of bed to bellow at reporters: “I am not dying! Even if I was dying I should have vigor enough to knock this abuse down your lying throats!” At least, this was what the journalists reported, though everyone in America knew the Commodore’s language was considerably saltier.
Vanderbilt’s railway car was the last word in elegance and modernity; there were Tiffany lamps, china and crystal service, as well as the clever new sleeper beds invented by George Pullman. By now, Johnson had met the other students, and noted in his journal they were “a bit tedious and spoiled, but all in all, an adventure-seeking lot. Yet we all share a common fear—of Professor Marsh.”
It was clear, seeing Marsh stride commandingly about the railway car, now sinking into the plush banquette seats to smoke a cigar, now snapping his fingers for the servant to bring him an iced drink, that he imagined himself as suited to these surroundings. And indeed, the newspapers sometimes referred to him as the “Baron of Bones,” just as Carnegie was the Baron of Steel, and Rockefeller the Baron of Oil.
Like these other great figures, Marsh was self-made. The son of a New York farmer, he had early shown an interest in fossils and learning. Despite the ridicule of his family, he had attended Phillips Academy Andover, graduating at the age of twenty-nine with high honors and the nickname “Daddy Marsh.” From Andover he went to Yale, and from Yale to England to plead support from his philanthropic uncle, George Peabody. His uncle admired learning in all forms, and was pleased to see a member of his family taking up an academic life. He gave Othniel Marsh the funds to start the Peabody Museum at Yale. The only catch was that Peabody later gave a similar sum to Harvard, to start another Peabody Museum there. This was because Marsh espoused Darwinism, and George Peabody disapproved of such irreligious sentiments. Harvard was the home of Louis Agassiz, an eminent zoology professor who opposed Darwin’s ideas, and was thus a stronghold of the anti-evolutionists—Harvard would provide a useful corrective to the excesses of his nephew, Peabody felt. All this Johnson learned in whispered conversation in the rocking Pullman bunks that night, before the excited students dropped off to sleep.
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