The Birmingham Museum of Art was one of eight national institutions awarded the 2011 National Endowment for the Humanities Picturing America School Collaboration Projects grant. The grant will support the development of a two-day teacher workshop, "Field to Factory: The Changing Face of the American Landscape." Scheduled for the summer of 2012, the workshop will closely explore the United States’ gradual shift from an agrarian to industrial society, and how that change is reflected in American art. The Birmingham Museum of Art is fortunate to have a key masterpiece from its permanent collection—Albert Bierstadt’s Looking Down Yosemite Valley, California (1865)—chosen for inclusion in the Picturing America program. An in-depth exploration of this painting will provide a framework for our discussion of concepts of the American wilderness and the frontier and America’s transition from an agricultural to an industrial society.