Susquehanna at Standing Stone c. 1895

William H. Rau captured 'Susquehanna at Standing Stone' with a mammoth plate camera, a process that reflects the late 19th-century fascination with landscape and technological advancement. The placid surface of the river and verdant hills belie a more complicated history. The name "Standing Stone" is itself a reference to Indigenous presence, specifically the destruction of a sacred monument of the Susquehannock people. This act of erasure is part of a larger narrative of displacement and cultural suppression, a history often glossed over in romantic depictions of the American landscape. Rau's photograph then becomes a loaded image, one that invites reflection on whose stories are told and whose are omitted. Consider how photography itself became a tool in shaping perceptions of land and ownership during this period. This image invites us to consider the unseen histories embedded in the land.