John Gast, American Progress, 1872 Martha A. Sandweiss, Amherst College Historian Martha A. Sandweiss demonstrates how John Gast’s 1872 painting, which was widely disseminated as a commercial color print, conveys a range of ideas about the frontier in nineteenth-century America. John Gast, American Progress, 1872. Chromolithograph published by George A, Crofutt. Source: Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress. John Gast, a Brooklyn based painter and lithographer, painted this picture in 1872 on commission for George Crofutt, the publisher of a popular series of western travel guides. Few Americans saw the actual painting, but many encountered it in reproduction.