HIS 340 Southern New Hampshire Historiography of Lewis and Clarks Expedition HW Brundage provides a case study of the historiography of Lewis and Clark’s E

HIS 340 Southern New Hampshire Historiography of Lewis and Clarks Expedition HW Brundage provides a case study of the historiography of Lewis and Clark’s Expedition. In this model, the secondary sources are analyzed chronologically. Moulton, in his essay, approaches the same topic thematically. Cayton provides a comparative book review as a means of assessing Lewis and Clark historiography.

In preparing your initial post, focus on the different approaches taken in the three readings. What approach seems most effective in terms of developing a comprehensive account of historians’ perspectives on the history of Lewis and Clark? How might these readings guide the development of your own historiographical review?

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here is the link for the Brundage source : https://mbsdirect.vitalsource.com/#/books/97811192… On Reading Lewis and Clark: The Last Twenty Years
Author(s): Gary E. Moulton
Source: Montana The Magazine of Western History , Summer, 1988, Vol. 38, No. 3
(Summer, 1988), pp. 28-39
Published by: Montana Historical Society
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/4519151
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On Reading
Lewis and Clark
The ast
Twenty Years
by Gary E. Moulton
The Lewis and Clark expedition is one
of the great adventure stories in American
history. Everyone knows about the two
captains’ trek across the continent with
their band of intrepid explorers. And who
has not heard about Sacagawea, the young
Shoshone girl who accompanied the party
with her newborn baby strapped to her
back? The journey is filled with tales of
high excitement: of dangerous encounters
with the natives; of hair-raising river cross-
ings and precipitous mountain traverses;
of hunger, thirst, and bodily fatigue. It re-
L
C
t
b
Mw
o
mains for all time a story of endurance,
discovery, and achievement.
Yet, what sets this romantic and stirring
event apart from other western epics is the
true and undisputed evidence upon which
it is based. Had the captains and several
enlisted men not kept daily journals of
their activities-recording events, observations, and impressions-their important
discoveries might just be more wide-eyed
tales spread by would-be adventurers.
There is, then, a literary adventure await-
ing the reader of Lewis and Clark. Not
only can we vicariously relive the experiences of the Corps of Discovery in the
men’s own words but we can also read
exciting literature by writers who have
thrilled to the story.
Leiv’is
anld
Clark
28 MONTANA THE MAGAZINE OF WESTERN HISTORY
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1-101,~~~~~~~~~~~
-ti~~~~~-
Sacagawea, one of the most famous members of the party, was often
portrayed by artists in romantic and exaggerated situations.
SUMMER
1988
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29
Lewis and Clark Renascence
tant. After a year’s work, Jackson had obtained the
cooperation of the manuscript-holding repositories
and written the first proposal for federal funding. By
July 1979, I began directing The Journals of the
Lewis and Clark Expedition, and to date an Atlas and
three volumes of journal material have been published. Another volume will appear this summer;
the
eleven volumes are planned altogether.
Ironically, the new edition comes not at the beginning of the renaissance of expedition scholarship but
during its growth. As one reviewer of the edition
queried, “Are we on the verge of a new burst of
Twenty years ago this summer, Don Jackson
reviewed Lewis and Clark literature in an essay
published in Montana. Because of the significant
flowering of literature on the expedition during
last twenty years and to acknowledge the debt owed
Jackson for the current state of Lewis and Clark
scholarship, it is appropriate now to view again the
literary landscape of the expedition. The quantity
and quality of writing on the subject during the last
Lewis and Clark material? Or has the wave already
two decades is largely due to Jackson’s efforts, for
crested, with these Journals the culmination rather
he not only provided new primary sources with his
than the incubator of inquiry?” Lewis and Clark enmagisterial Letters of the Lewis and Clark Expedition
thusiasts hope it is the former.4
in 1962, but he also contributed significantly to the
This new edition differs from earlier ones beliterary renascence of Lewis and Clark studies. In
cause it is not the result of a discovery of original
his own work and as editor of the University of
documents, even though we have recently seen a
Illinois Press, where he guided important books
most important discovery of new material. In 1953,
about Lewis and Clark into print, Jackson set a high
in St. Paul, Minnesota, descendants of a Civil War
standard. And in Among the Sleeping Giants, his last
general discovered sixty-seven loose sheets of expublished book before his death, Jackson brought
pedition field notes in an antique attic desk. The first
together his final reflections on the expedition.’
pages cover the period from December 1803 to May
The Lewis and Clark renascence also owes a
1804 while the party was camped in Illinois across
heavy debt to three periodical publications. Since
from St. Louis; the remaining documents take up
1974, the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundathe writing in May 1804 and continue sporadically
tion has published We Proceeded On, a quarterly
until April 1805, when the party left Fort Mandan
periodical devoted entirely to the study of the exin present-day North Dakota. A court case to deterpedition, containing feature articles by scholars and
mine ownership, which Calvin Tomkins thoroughly
enthusiasts.2 The Bulletin of the Missouri Historical
discussed in New Yorker magazine, delayed publicaSociety, St. Louis, now titled Gateway Heritage, has
tion of these important documents. Eventually,
also been an important vehicle for writing on Lewis
Ernest S. Osgood edited the documents-some of
and Clark. Since the 1960s, it has carried numerous
the most difficult from the exploration-as The Field
articles and essays by Lewis and Clark scholars on
Notes of Captain William Clark. Osgood also prethe expedition. And Montana has been an outlet for
sented his findings about the provenance of the
at least twenty-five Lewis and Clark articles that
documents, their place among the expedition’s rehave been published since its first issue in 1951.3
cords, and why Clark kept such notes.
Discussions of the journals themselves must in-
The Original Documents
clude Paul Russell Cutright’s A History of the Lewis
and Clark Journals. Cutright traced the provenance
and distribution of the diaries by the two captains
and four enlisted men, followed the publication
history of the journals, and evaluated the editors of
One of the most important recent events for
the various editions, from Nicholas Biddle in 1814
Lewis and Clark scholarship was the decision to
to
Osgood and Jackson in the 1960s. Cutright also
publish a new edition of the journals. Playing a key
collaborated with Michael J. Brodhead in a biorole, Don Jackson expressed what others had begraphy of Biddle’s editorial heir, Elliott Coues, and
lieved for some time when he told Missouri Historical Society members in 1967 that it was time to he worked with original material when he compared
a fair copy of Private Joseph Whitehouse’s journal
produce a new and standard edition of the journals.
found in 1966 with its original version. Because the
A decade later, an editor at the University of Nebraska Press took up Jackson’s challenge and enlisted the support of the university’s Center for
Great Plains Studies, which hired him as a consul1. Donald Jackson, “On Reading Lewis and Clark,” Montana the
Magazine of Western History 18 (Summer 1968): 2-7. Some of the items
that are mentioned in this essay were published before 1968. This was
done in order to show the influence of Jackson’s work in the Letters and
to pick up some sources that he did not mention in the earlier article; his
essay did not include periodical items, for instance.
copy extended the soldier’s journal writing nearly
five months, it was an important discovery and is
2. For many years superbly edited by Robert E. Lange of Portland,
Oregon, it is now headquartered in Helena under the able direction of Bob
Saindon. I have decided not to discuss articles in We Proceeded On in this
essay, because space will not allow an adequate discussion of its many
excellent articles. No one doing serious study of the expedition can
overlook it, and anyone interested in the Lewis and Clark story ought to
be a subscriber. I also do not consider children’s literature or fiction in
this essay.
30
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(A*
A
I~~~ZA
Lewis made his first entry in his journal as he Lewis’s compass was part of the
left Pittsburgh for the West on August 30, 1803. scientific equipment carried by
the party.
discussed by Cutright in his History and in an article,
Clark’s detailed charting of the Missouri River
“The Journal of Private Joseph Whitehouse: A
below Fort Mandan-an area for which no largeSoldier with Lewis and Clark.” This new Whitescale maps from the expedition are known to exist.
house material will appear in print in its entirety for The Clark-Maximilian maps also fill important gaps
in Clark’s mapping of the Yellowstone River on the
the first time in the new edition of the journals.
How to interpret the journals has also been a subreturn trip in 1806. In another essay, Wood follows
ject for writers on Lewis and Clark. Don Jackson’s
Clark’s mapping across the state of Missouri and
“Some Advice for the Next Editor of Lewis and
reveals a previously hidden map from Clark’s field
notes. Scholars have also reinterpreted some exClark,” for example, asks two intriguing questions:
do we have all the journals and other documents,
isting maps, such as Stephen A. Chomko’s determiand how and when were the journals produced? I
nation that a map printed by Reuben Gold Thwaites
have tried to answer these questions in the introduc- is in fact a post-expeditionary work, probably made
tion to volume 2 of theJournals, while declaring that about 1807 or 1810.
a final answer may not be possible. The first question I addressed in an article in Montana, “The
Missing Journals of Meriwether Lewis,” where I
concluded that there are probably no lost journals.
The Party
We seem to have the full corpus of Lewis’s journal
writing, with the exception of some lost notes possibly kept during the trip over the Rocky Mountains
During the resurgence in Lewis and Clark
and during the fall of 1805. In “The Specialized
studies, the expedition leaders have not received the
Journals of Lewis and Clark,” I investigated the six biographical attention they deserve. Existing bionotebooks that included the men’s observations on
graphies are inadequate and concentrate mostly on
astronomy, botany, zoology, and weather.
the day-to-day activities during the expedition, and
New cartographic materials have also come to
they are not well-documented. Clark has yet to relight in recent years. W. Raymond Wood and I deceive a full-scale biography. We need modem
scribed a long-lost series of maps that had been
studies of the men, of their lives before the exploramade for Prince Maximilian in 1833 from originals
tion, and of their careers afterward. Although the
owned by Clark at St. Louis. In the care of the Joslynexpedition was the high point of the men’s lives,
Art Museum, Omaha, since 1962, these maps show
authors must understand that the captains’ lives,
3. Other trail state periodicals have also carried important essays
4. Harry Fritz reviewing volume 3 of The Journals of the Lewis and
about the expedition, including Idaho Yesterdays, Nebraska History, NorthClark Expedition in We Proceeded On 13 (November 1987): 31. Reviews
Dakota History, Missouri Historical Review, Oregon Historical Quarterly,
of the new edition are being carried volume-by-volume in that and many
other historical periodicals, including Montana.
South Dakota History, and Pacific Northwest Quarterly.
31
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character, and careers were not entirely formed or
before and after their season of glory and hardly
devoted to those few years.
qualify for biographies. One member of the party,
however, has recently received book-length treatThe short and tragic life of Lewis has inspired
ment: Clark’s black slave, York. Robert Betts went
more writing than that of Clark. Rochonne Abrams
In Search of York and discovered the spectre of
wrote three articles on Lewis’s youth and his life
after the expedition, but she added no new facts, ad- racism. Tales of York’s sexual prowess, for invanced no new interpretations, and was unable to
stance, rest largely on racial bias; his relations with
Indian women were similar to other men in the
take advantage of Don Jackson’s important disparty. York seems to have performed his full share
covery that Lewis may not have been enlisted as
of duties and even carried a gun, a privilege not
Jefferson’s secretary specifically to prepare him
allowed Virginia slaves.
for western exploration. It appears that Jefferson
Charles G. Clarke gave brief sketches of all The
wanted to use Lewis’s knowledge of military personnel to strengthen the officer ranks. Jackson’s essay, Men of the Lewis and Clark Expedition and also provided a count of the men that is probably as accurate
“Jefferson, Meriwether Lewis, and the Reduction
as can be achieved considering the difficulty of idenof the United States Army,” is exactly the sort of
tifying the French engages. His short biographical
special study that needs to be done on the men.
sketches yield about as much information as may
The circumstances of Lewis’s death continue to
ever be known about many of the men. Biographies
be a fascinating question for study, despite general
of ten expedition members or persons closely conacceptance that it was suicide. For most, evidence
included in Jackson’s Letters settled the matter; and nected with the expedition are included in LeRoy R.
Hafen’s The Mountain Men and the Fur Trade of the
in “A Footnote to the Lewis and Clark Expedition,”
Far West, due largely to their later fur-trading
Jackson discussed Lewis’s death at length, convincingly reiterating his conviction that Lewis diedcareers.
Some expedition members appear only infreby his own hand. Howard I. Kushner approached
quently and insignificantly in the journals, but
the question of “The Suicide of Meriwether Lewis”
Joseph and Reubin Field are mentioned repeatedly.
as a psychoanalytic investigation, using psychological studies of suicide, and found an explanation One or both brothers seemed always to draw special
in the effects of “incomplete mourning.” Kushner assignments and difficult tasks, as Lewis later
noted: “It was their peculiar fate to have been ensurmised that because of his youth Lewis had not
gaged in all the most dangerous and difficult scenes
completed the process of mourning his father’s
of the voyage, in which they uniformly acquitted
and stepfather’s deaths. Kushner also scrutinized
Lewis’s relationship with his mother. Lacking docu- themselves with much honor.”5 Roy E. Appleman
discovered and presented what scant evidence is
mentary evidence to support his conclusion, Kushavailable about them in “Joseph and Reubin Field,
ner built his case almost entirely on supposition, a
weak device for historical inquiry, and he is wrong Kentucky Frontiersmen of the Lewis and Clark Ex-
on an important point-that few historians accept pedition and Their Father, Abraham.” Wisely, he
concentrated on their early and later years, espe-
the suicide theory.
Jerome 0. Steffen’s William Clark: Jeffersonian
Man on the Frontier is a thematic study rather than
a traditional biography. Steffen was less interested
cially Joseph’s, writing that their lives belong “to the
short and simple annals of the poor-and forgotten.”
tious officer, Clark promoted the best interests of his
evidence to the contrary, for instance, the belief still
contemporaries. “Although Clark’s treatment of the
Indians may now be considered to have been pater-
River Reservation in Wyoming. She actually died at
Fort Manuel in South Dakota in 1812, a fact that has
been known since 1920 and confirmed beyond doubt
Sacagawea has probably received more attention
than any other member of the expedition, save the
in Clark’s actual career than he was in how that
career mirrored changes in American society as it captains. The devotion lavished on her led Bernard
moved from Jeffersonianism to Jacksonianism. John DeVoto to observe that some may believe that
L. Loos provided better information on Clark’s years “Lewis, Clark, and their command were privileged
to assist in the Sacajawea Expedition.”6 During the
after the expedition in “William Clark: Indian
Agent.” It is easy to forget that Clark spent the last two decades her acclaim has not diminished and
greater part of his career in St. Louis as a federal no amount of historical scholarship has been able to
correct the distortions. Despite incontrovertible
agent of Indian affairs. An effective and conscien-
Indian wards and gained the respect of his white persists that she lived into the 1880s at the Wind
nalistic and patronizing,” Loos concluded, “by the
standards of his own time and place it was fair and
from a document by Clark in Jackson’s edition of
often compassionate.”
Although abundant information exists about the
captains, most of the corpsmen lived obscure lives
Letters.
5. Lewis to Henry Dearborn, January 15, 1807, in Jackson, ed.,
Letters of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, 1:367.
Obvious and seemingly trivial items, such as the
spelling of her name and its meaning and pronuncia6. Bernard DeVoto, The Course of Empire (Boston: Houghton
Mifflin, 1952), 478.
32
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