United States House of Representatives: History, Art, & Archives
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Westward Ho! Postcard

A postcard with a reproduced painting of people with covered wagons and horses with mountains in the background. At the bottom is a reproduced painting of a harbor./tiles/collection/6/6475.xml
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Back of the postcard, blank, with caption reading, “Westward Ho! Painting by Emanuel Leutze, in the Capitol, Washington. Pictures an immigrant train in the Rocky Mountains. Below is Bierstadt’s Golden Gate, Harbor of San Francisco.”/tiles/collection/1/13785.xml
Download this image
A postcard with a reproduced painting of people with covered wagons and horses with mountains in the background. At the bottom is a reproduced painting of a harbor.
Back of the postcard, blank, with caption reading, “Westward Ho! Painting by Emanuel Leutze, in the Capitol, Washington. Pictures an immigrant train in the Rocky Mountains. Below is Bierstadt’s Golden Gate, Harbor of San Francisco.”
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Date

ca. 1920

Publisher

B.S. Reynolds Co., Washington, DC

Dimensions

3 1/2 x 5 1/2 in. (8.9 x 14 cm)

Accession Number

2005.049.001

Credit Line

Collection of the U.S. House of Representatives

Object Details

Emmanuel Leutze’s monumental mural Westward, the Course of Empire Takes its Way (Westward, Ho!), a remarkable feature of the Capitol’s House wing, showed to advantage on this postcard, thanks to a sophisticated color printing process. The mural, an optimistic evocation of Manifest Destiny created during the Civil War, depicts settlers reaching the Pacific coast after an arduous over-land journey.

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Office of the Historian: history@mail.house.gov
Office of Art & Archives, Office of the Clerk: art@mail.house.gov, archives@mail.house.gov