
1849
This view of Minnehaha Falls illustrated the poem “The Laughing Waters” by Seth Eastman’s second wife, Mary Henderson Eastman. In a picturesque touch, a windblown hunter juts over the water. There was a market for sentimental verse and romantic adventure in the mid-19th century -- think Longfellow’s 1855 tale of star-crossed lovers Hiawatha and Minnehaha by the shores of Gitche Gumee. Mary capitalized on the seeming exoticism of Native life, having collected Dakota stories “during her sojourn in the wilderness, ” as one critic put it. This picture was reproduced along with Mary’s writings in an 1852 book called The Iris: An Illuminated Souvenir.