Two centuries after their expedition awoke the nation both to the promise and to the disquiet of the vast territory out west, Lewis and Clark still stir the imagination, and their adventure remains one of the most celebrated and studied chapters in American history. This volume explores the legacy of Lewis and Clark's momentous journey and, on the occasion of its bicentennial, considers the impact of their westward expedition on American culture. Approaching their subject from many different perspectives—literature, history, women's studies, law, medicine, and environmental history, among others—the authors chart shifting attitudes about the explorers and their journals, together creating a compelling, finely detailed picture of the "interdisciplinary intrigue" that has always surrounded Lewis and Clark's accomplishment. This collection is most remarkable for its insights into ongoing debates over the relationships between settler culture and aboriginal peoples, law and land tenure, manifest destiny and westward expansion, as well as over the character of Sacagawea, the expedition's vision of nature, and the interpretation and preservation of the Lewis and Clark Trail.
Lewis & Clark Legacies, Memories, and New Perspectives
About the Book
Reviews
"This miscellany of insightful, articulate, and well-documented essays will find a receptive audience amoung all levels of adult readers."—M.l. Tate Choice
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Introduction—Kris Fresonke
I. CONTEXTS
1. Living with Lewis & Clark: The American Philosophical Society’s Continuing Relationship with the Corps of Discovery from the Michaux Expedition to the Present
Edward C. Carter II
2. Wilderness Aesthetics
Frank Bergon
3. "Two dozes of barks and opium": Lewis & Clark as Physicians
Ronald V. Loge, M.D.
II. LEGACIES
4. The Louisiana Purchase and the Lewis & Clark Expedition: A Constitutional Moment?
Peter A. Appel
5. "Twice-born" from the Waters: The Two-Hundred-Year Journey of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Indians
Raymond Cross
6. George Shannon and C. S. Rafinesque
Charles Boewe
III. MEMORIES
7. "We are not dealing entirely with the past": Americans Remember Lewis & Clark
John Spencer
8. Sacajawea, Meet Cogewea: A Red Progressive Revision of Frontier Romance
Joanna Brooks
9. On the Trail: Commemorating the Lewis & Clark Expedition in the Twentieth Century
Wallace G. Lewis
IV. NEW PERSPECTIVES
10. Let’s Play Lewis & Clark: Strange Visions of Nature and History at the Bicentennial
Mark Spence
11. On the Tourist Trail with Lewis & Clark: Issues of Interpretation and Preservation
Andrew Gulliford
12. The Lewis & Clark Bicentennial: Putting Tribes Back on the Map
Roberta Connor
Epilogue. "We proceeded on"—Dayton Duncan
List of Contributors
Index