Cleveland Museum of Art

Great Dismal Swamp, Virginia

Israel Cook Russell

Date

c. 1872–90

Medium

albumen print

Culture

America

Department

Photography

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

Israel Cook Russell’s view of the Great Dismal Swamp, which straddles the border between Virginia and North Carolina, evokes both the locale’s abundance of timber and its sense of desolation. Russell, a celebrated geologist, took care to express the geological and biological forces that shaped landscapes but also to create images of artistic value. From the 1700s through the Civil War, the Great Dismal Swamp’s timber was harvested by slave labor, yet the swamp also housed numerous people who had escaped slavery.

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