John Gast was a painter and lithographer who had been born in Prussia and lived in St. Louis, Missouri, and Paris, France, before settling in Brooklyn, New York. He was commissioned by a publisher to paint American Progress for use in travel guides to the American West. The painting is a symbolic representation of Manifest Destiny. It prominently features Columbia—the female personification of the United States—moving from the bright East to the dark and threatening West. Columbia leads white settlers in various transportation methods as she unspools telegraph lines and carries a schoolbook in her arm.