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An American Blarney Stone?

According to Irish legend, kissing a particular stone at Blarney Castle bestows the gift of eloquence and flattery.

Do you think kissing these canyon walls would do the same? We suspect that visions of these awe-inspiring monoliths might render one speechless instead!

On St. Patrick's Day we honor Irish American photographer Timothy O'Sullivan, famous for his Civil War images and iconic western landscapes. After he completed his Civil War assignments, O'Sullivan journeyed West and photographed more than 1,000 plates with various scientific expeditions between 1867 and 1874.

In 1871 O'Sullivan joined the geological surveys west of the one hundredth meridian, under the command of Lieutenant George M. Wheeler of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. An army man rather than a civilian scientist like Clarence King, Wheeler insisted on a survey that would be of practical value. His reports included information likely to be useful in the establishment of roads and rail routes and the development of economic resources. Wheeler's captions for O'Sullivan's pictures provide geological information but also emphasize that the West was a hospitable place for settlers.

See more of O'Sullivan's works in our online exhibition American Photographs: The First Century.

Source: Merry A. Foresta. American Photographs: The First Century (Washington, D.C.: National Museum of American Art with the Smithsonian Institution Press, 1996).

Pictured: Timothy H. O'Sullivan, 1840 Ireland–1882 USA, Cañon de Chelle, Walls of the Grand Cañon about 1200 Feet in Height (Wheeler Survey), 1873, albumen print on paper mounted on paperboard, 8 x 10 7/8 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase from the Charles Isaacs Collection made possible in part by the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment.