National Traveling Exhibition
About the Traveling Exhibition
Lewis & Clark and the Indian Country is a national traveling panel exhibit based upon a larger exhibition of the same name developed by the Newberry Library in Chicago. It is being displayed at 23 libraries and four tribal centers throughout the United States.
The exhibit provides a new perspective of the encounters the United States Corps of Discovery had with over 50 Native American tribes on its expedition to the Pacific Ocean and back between 1804 and 1806. It traces the dramatic impact of those encounters on the Indian country and United States history. The Corps' interactions with Native Americans brought together cultures with very different world vies, motivations, and expectations, and resulted in two centuries of dramatic change in the region. Frederick E. Hoxie, Swanlund Professor of History at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, curated the exhibit.
Exhibit visitors will
be offered unique opportunities to explore the "Indian Country" as it existed at
the beginning of the nineteenth century; to glimpse the variety of relationships
Native peoples and the Lewis and Clark party forged with one another; to view
the impact of the American presence on the Indian Country; and to reflect on the
efforts of contemporary reservation communities to support and sustain the
Indian Country and its remarkable cultures in the twenty-first century.
The traveling exhibition, located on the
first floor of Ablah Library,
occupies 1,000 square feet of space. It consists of six
sections which are comprised of 10 panels each. Each panel contains reproductions of rare historical documents, photographs, and illustrative materials.
Artifacts from the Lowell D. Holmes
Museum of Anthropology will also be on display.
The sections of the traveling exhibition focus on:
- Lewis and Clark and the Indian Country: 200 years of American History
- The Indian Country 1800: A Brilliant Plan for Living
- Crossing the Indian Country, 1804-1806
- Crossing the Indian Country, 1804-1806: the Expedition Timeline
- A New Nation Comes to the Indian Country
- The Indian Country Today
Read about the the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial:
Lewis and Clark Bicentennial by Frederick E. Hoxie,
Traveling Exhibit Curator, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
