The Song of Hiawatha 1950). American landscape painters referred to the poem to add an epic dimension to their patriotic celebration of the wonders of the national landscape. Albert Bierstadt presented his sunset piece, "The Departure of Hiawatha," to Longfellow in 1868 when the poet was in England to receive an honorary degree at the University of Cambridge. Other examples include Thomas Moran's "Fiercely the Red Sun Descending, Burned His Way along the Heavens" (1875), held by the North Carolina Museum of Art, and the panoramic waterfalls of "Hiawatha and Minnehaha on their Honeymoon" (1885) by Jerome Thompson (1814 – 1886). Thomas Eakins made
Paul Revere over 40 years after Revere's death, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow made the midnight ride the subject of his poem "Paul Revere's Ride" which opens: Longfellow's poem is not historically accurate, but the inaccuracies were deliberate. Longfellow had researched the historical event, using such works as George Bancroft's "History of the United States", but he changed the facts for poetic effect. The poem was one of a series in which he sought to create American legends; earlier examples include "The Song of Hiawatha" (1855) and "The Courtship of Miles Standish" (1858). Longfellow was successful in creating a legend: Revere's stature rose significantly