No one image can reflect the diversity of my teaching, but this one captures much of 19th century America, where most of my literary interests are.

For most of the century, the New York firm of Nathan Currier and James Ives was immensely popular as "Publishers of Colored Engravings for the People." Their prints of familiar American scenes, selling for 5¢ to 25¢ apiece, were easy to understand and were executed without artiness. This famous lithograph by Ives from an original drawing by Fanny Palmer fairly teems with icons of the nation's faith in its "manifest destiny":  a frontier settlement at the edge of civilization is the last stop on the wagon trail, while newly-laid train tracks stretch west to the horizon.  On the cars is lettered Through Line New York San Francisco, predicting the completion of the first transcontinental railroad in May of the following year.