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Family portrait of the ideal white, American family

Cover of the United States Magazine and Democratic Review, Volume XII, dated 1843

Emanuel Leutze’s mural celebrates the western expansion of the United States. A group of pioneers and their train of covered wagons are pictured at the continental divide, looking towards the sunset and the Pacific Ocean. The border depicts vignettes…

The railroad disrupts nature and bears down on the viewer, with the locomotive's light shining like a jewel. Wild deer scatter to the left, but the cleared field offers no refuge--the stumps, that catch the light of the west-setting sun, and the…