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Object Timeline

-0001

1923

  • We acquired this object.

2006

2015

2025

  • You found it!

Drawing, Old Man of the Mountain, New Hampshire

This is a Drawing. It is dated August 30, 1876 and we acquired it in 1923. Its medium is charcoal, crayon on paper. It is a part of the Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design department.

During the 1840s and especially after 1850, when Nathaniel Hawthorne published his short story “The Great Stone Face,” the rock formation known as the “Old Man of the Mountain” was transformed from a local legend to a symbol of the White Mountains and of New England, its people, and their politics. Samuel Coffin Eastman’s White Mountain Guidebook described for the tourist the best route to the site from the Profile House hotel, and Thomas Star King’s The White Hills (in the “Parlor” section of this exhibition) told visitors where to stand and the best time to view the rock formation. The official logo of New Hampshire since 1945, the profile fell in May 2003.



Wall Label from exhibition, "Frederic Church, Winslow Homer, and Thomas Moran: Tourism and the American Landscape," Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, New York, NY.

This object was donated by Mrs. F. Hopkinson Smith. It is credited Gift of Mrs. F. Hopkinson Smith.

Its dimensions are

57 × 33.5 cm (22 7/16 × 13 3/16 in.)

It is signed

Signed with monogram and dated in black chalk, lower left corner: [monogram] Aug. 30/76

Cite this object as

Drawing, Old Man of the Mountain, New Hampshire; USA; charcoal, crayon on paper; 57 × 33.5 cm (22 7/16 × 13 3/16 in.); Gift of Mrs. F. Hopkinson Smith; 1923-41-1

This object was previously on display as a part of the exhibition Frederic Church, Winslow Homer & Thomas Moran: Tourism and the American Landscape.

This image is in the public domain (free of copyright restrictions). You can copy, modify, and distribute this work without contacting the Smithsonian. For more information, visit the Smithsonian’s Terms of Use page.

If you would like to cite this object in a Wikipedia article please use the following template:

<ref name=CH>{{cite web |url=https://www-4.collection.cooperhewitt.org/objects/18300293/ |title=Drawing, Old Man of the Mountain, New Hampshire |author=Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |accessdate=6 February 2025 |publisher=Smithsonian Institution}}</ref>