Great Plains Studies, Center for
Date of this Version
Summer 2011
Document Type
Article
Citation
Great Plains Quarterly 31:3 (Summer 2011).
Abstract
This informative and thought-provoking work analyzes the early commemorations of the Lewis and Clark Expedition and the origins of the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail. Neither a guidebook nor an administrative or institutional history of the agencies or organizations involved, this work is concerned with the interpretation and historical meanings of the expedition within the national ethos and how these have changed over time.
Wallace Lewis identifies the factors that contributed to the reinterpretation, resurgence of popularity, and amplification of the importance of the expedition. These included the erection of monuments and statues, the publication of various editions of the expedition journals, painstaking efforts to locate the historical route by historians, promoters, and trail buffs, reconstruction of Forts Mandan and Clatsop, and, most important, automobile access that enabled people to follow the trail. Lewis's central thesis asserts that modern-day travelers tracing the trail in their vehicles assume the explorers' role and participate in the trail's historic replication. The construction of highway routes in the first half of the twentieth century provided access to the expedition's historical sites and played a critical role in the development and establishment of the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail in 1978.
Comments
Copyright © 2011 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska.