# American Progress (John Gast, 1872) Was the Artist Being Ironic? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [August 6, 2025, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-progress-john-gast-1872-was-the-artist-being-ironic/1021778 "2025-08-06T17:00:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2025, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-progress-john-gast-1872-was-the-artist-being-ironic/1021778/21 "2025-08-06T18:05:21Z")
“And I’ll just put a little bison skeleton with an arrow in it right here. Yeah… a happy little skeleton, just bleaching in away in the warm sunshine!” ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2025, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-progress-john-gast-1872-was-the-artist-being-ironic/1021778/22 "2025-08-06T18:14:01Z")
Clearly expansionist propaganda, but as former lineman and teacher, I gotta admire Columbia’s versatility. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2025, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-progress-john-gast-1872-was-the-artist-being-ironic/1021778/23 "2025-08-06T18:19:08Z")
Lineman? She isn’t even wearing shoulder pads. And there’s no number on her jersey! ---
**Author:** ![Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/prof.pepperwinkle/32/13627_2.png) [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prof.Pepperwinkle)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2025, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-progress-john-gast-1872-was-the-artist-being-ironic/1021778/24 "2025-08-06T18:25:21Z")
It’s his best known painting and only claim to fame. It does clearly represent Manifest Destiny. It was available as a color lithograph, and hung in hundreds of homes (possibly thousands). It’s a piece of it’s only time and white American male culture. Here’s an article: [Picturing US History - John Gast, American Progress, 1872](https://picturinghistory.gc.cuny.edu/john-gast-american-progress-1872/) ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2025, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-progress-john-gast-1872-was-the-artist-being-ironic/1021778/25 "2025-08-06T18:30:08Z")
Robert Hughes briefly mentioned it (14:05 in linked video) in 1997’s [American Visions](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_OHk1B5NHZs&t=1012s&pp=2AH0B5ACAQ%253D%253D), with the rest of the episode putting in context. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2025, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-progress-john-gast-1872-was-the-artist-being-ironic/1021778/26 "2025-08-06T18:39:32Z")
Virtually everyone in late 18th/early 19th century America advocated for the extinction of Indians. “Liberals” wanted to take the children and Christianize them to eliminate any traces of Indian heritage. “Moderates” were satisfied with shoving them onto remote reservations where they could starve out of sight. “Conservatives” wanted all-out genocide. Teddy Roosevelt, e.g., had dim views of Indians. Like this [early one from 1886](https://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/addressing-the-statue/timeline): “I don’t go so far as to think that the only good Indians are the dead Indians, but I believe nine out of every 10 are and I shouldn’t like to inquire too closely into the case of the 10th. [And this closer to the thread one](https://www.history.com/articles/teddy-roosevelt-race-imperialism-national-parks). > Roosevelt viewed Native Americans as impediments to the white settlement of the United States and believed that white frontiersmen had forged a new race—the American race—by “ceaseless strife waged against wild man and wild nature.” Which was exactly the attitude that the Gast painting from 1872 exalted - the sun in the east is rising over a new America - and still represented the almost universal feelings a generation later. It shouldn’t be read in any other way. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2025, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-progress-john-gast-1872-was-the-artist-being-ironic/1021778/27 "2025-08-06T18:48:09Z")
Y’know Bob Barker was 1/8 Sioux: he even grew up on the rez. I’d love to see him beat up Teddy Roosevelt! ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2025, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-progress-john-gast-1872-was-the-artist-being-ironic/1021778/28 "2025-08-06T21:42:51Z")
No, she’s the _Wichita_ lineman. ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2025, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-progress-john-gast-1872-was-the-artist-being-ironic/1021778/29 "2025-08-07T02:25:33Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > > Roosevelt viewed Native Americans as impediments to the white settlement of the United States and believed that white frontiersmen had forged a new race—the American race—by “ceaseless strife waged against wild man and wild nature.” > > Which was exactly the attitude that the Gast painting from 1872 exalted . . . I partly disagree. If that was the exact attitude being exalted, United States soldiers would have been in the foreground, and there would have been some dead bodies a la [Liberty Leading the People](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_Leading_the_People).. My guess is that any U.S. Army soldiers, tasked with Indian fighting, who saw this painting, disliked it, or at least were ambivalent. The message is that the Indians are easily pushed away. They will not, in the painting viewpoint, be a big problem in achieving the manifest destiny of American pioneers to settle the rest of the United States (including territories). ---
**Author:** ![JohnGalt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johngalt/32/184_2.png) [@JohnGalt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnGalt)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2025, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-progress-john-gast-1872-was-the-artist-being-ironic/1021778/30 "2025-08-07T02:40:30Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > Clearly expansionist propaganda, but as former lineman and teacher, I gotta admire Columbia’s versatility. I assume you’re referring to her carrying and advancing telegraph wires. Am I right? ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2025, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-progress-john-gast-1872-was-the-artist-being-ironic/1021778/31 "2025-08-07T02:56:04Z")
Yeah, and without a bucket truck. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2025, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-progress-john-gast-1872-was-the-artist-being-ironic/1021778/32 "2025-08-07T03:14:36Z")
Manifest Destiny was not fulfilled with the Army, not in reality and not in the public imagination. Clashes with natives started in Jamestown and Massachusetts colony and never stopped along any frontier thereafter. Westward expansion may have been eased by soldiers but the millions of civilians who kept moving onto Indian lands were orders of magnitude more important. True, since the Civil War regular Army soldiers were widely dispatched to fight Indians: Custer’s Last Stand is only four years away and that total failure was propagandized constantly. Even before that, some Army units were used to clear areas of natives, notably in the Seminole Wars but also in the far west. Not a lot, though: the Army was down to an official 25,000 and probably had great difficulty achieving that number. Why suffer the meager pay and hard life of a soldier when you could just go west and grab land for yourself? Perhaps my exposure to such allegorical paintings is too limited, but I can’t say I’ve ever encountered any depicting the grand sweep of Manifest Destiny with soldiers leading the settlers. If you can find even one I will congratulate you. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2025, 8:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-progress-john-gast-1872-was-the-artist-being-ironic/1021778/33 "2025-08-07T08:51:43Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > And the bear; which is also snarling back at the armed invaders coming after them in a similar fashion to the Native Americans. (I’m not sure what the creature with a striped tail between the bear and the humans is. Maybe it’s one of their dogs? There’s another one there which is definitely a dog.) > > I think the humans are being seen as equivalent to the bear and bison: unwanted large animals being driven off. In support of this, note that the Native Americans are shown as a handful of homeless nomads, and not as highly populated villagers; all the farming and buildings are on the White People side of the picture. That was pert of the ongoing genocide denial; pretending that there _were_ never anything but scattered “primitive nomads” who didn’t really _deserve_ to hog all that land for themselves. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2025, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-progress-john-gast-1872-was-the-artist-being-ironic/1021778/34 "2025-08-07T12:03:29Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > France, with their Marianne, is the most honest about it: “Yes, we want our national personification to be a hottie.” > [@PhillyGuy](#): > > a la [Liberty Leading the People](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_Leading_the_People).. …speaking of a trope of the heroine falling out of her dress. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2025, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-progress-john-gast-1872-was-the-artist-being-ironic/1021778/35 "2025-08-07T12:41:12Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > My question is, is this a painting by a man who _approves_ of that which he is depicting? It was painted on commission for someone [who very much did believe in what it’s promoting](https://www.geographicus.com/P/ctgy&Category_Code=crofuttgeorgea). So what the artist actually thought about it doesn’t signify. Although - he took the commission, he was a White European immigrant and AFAIK never even travelled West, so probably yes for him, too. ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2025, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-progress-john-gast-1872-was-the-artist-being-ironic/1021778/36 "2025-08-07T12:47:47Z")
I suppose there’s a profound explanation for why the dead guy, bottom left, is sans-culottes. ---
**Author:** ![Kropotkin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kropotkin/32/18045_2.png) [@Kropotkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kropotkin)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2025, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-progress-john-gast-1872-was-the-artist-being-ironic/1021778/37 "2025-08-07T12:52:51Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Virtually everyone in late 18th/early 19th century America advocated for the extinction of Indians Presumably some Indians had a contrarian position on this. The near extinction of the buffalo by white hunters is portrayed in this “Gastly” picture and that was key to “progress” and the removal by force of the Native Indian population. ---
**Author:** ![Kropotkin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kropotkin/32/18045_2.png) [@Kropotkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kropotkin)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2025, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-progress-john-gast-1872-was-the-artist-being-ironic/1021778/38 "2025-08-07T13:28:18Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > AFAIK never even travelled West, so probably yes for him, too. He did live and work in St. Louis, “the Gateway to the West,” for a time. ---
**Author:** ![Crane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crane/32/3495_2.png) [@Crane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crane)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2025, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-progress-john-gast-1872-was-the-artist-being-ironic/1021778/39 "2025-08-07T14:06:10Z")
I always thought Manifest Destiny was it’s title. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2025, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-progress-john-gast-1872-was-the-artist-being-ironic/1021778/40 "2025-08-07T14:07:46Z")
> [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](#): > > I suppose there’s a profound explanation for why the dead guy, bottom left, is sans-culottes Is that a human? The skeleton on the other side of the wagon is clearly cattle or buffalo; I thought the remains with the dogs(?) at it were supposed to be also; but it’s too blurry on my screen to be sure. In any case, it’s pretty skeletal; so if flesh has rotted off or been eaten, maybe any clothes have been also. Or am I missing something entirely? I don’t see any other dead bodies. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-progress-john-gast-1872-was-the-artist-being-ironic/1021778.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-progress-john-gast-1872-was-the-artist-being-ironic/1021778.md?page=3)