On October 25, [1741] we had very clear weather and sunshine, but even so it hailed at various times in the afternoon. We were surprised in the morning to discover a large tall island at 51° to the north of us.

Georg Wilhelm Steller, Journal of a Voyage with Bering, 1741-1742, translated by M. Engle and O. W. Frost (Stanford University Press, 1988), page 119.

Thus wrote the naturalist-physician, Georg Wilhelm Steller, about the discovery of Kiska Island in the Aleutian Island chain of present day Alaska. Steller's journal was kept according to the "Old Style" Julian Calendar which was replaced by the Gregorian Calendar in 1752, so his October 25 is our November 5. His entries provide a detailed first-hand account of the final voyage of the navigator and explorer, Captain-Commander Vitus Jonassen Bering.

Nome City Water Front [from Anchorage in Bering Sea],
October 20, 1899.
Taking the Long View, 1851-1991

Bering was born in 1681 in Horsens, Denmark, but for 38 years served with the Russian fleet. Under Tsar Peter the Great, Bering led a first expedition to determine if Russia and North America were connected by a land bridge.

Goldi Village on the Amur, North of Khabarovsk; Dog Tied in Foreground,
Siberia,
1895.
Around the World in the 1890s, 1894-1896

Having learned they were not, Bering undertook a second exploration, the Great Northern Expedition, with the secret purpose of securing a Russian foothold on the North American continent. In June 1741, Bering set sail in the St. Peter, with fellow navigator Aleksey Chirikov commanding the St. Paul. Soon the two were separated by a storm at sea. Chirikov searched futilely for Bering, but was forced to return home after losing two scouting parties of his own men.

Months later, survivors of Bering's ship came ashore in Siberia and their journals revealed an extraordinary tale. After a futile search for the St. Paul, they made the first European discovery of the northwest coast of America on July 16. By August 20, they had reconnoitered the land. By mid-September, Bering had set a return course when, weak with scurvy, his men were shipwrecked on the shore of Bering Island. Bering died in December, but the survivors nursed themselves back to health eating whale blubber, fox meat, and spring greens.

St. Michael's Cathedral [detail],
Novoarkhangelsk
[Sitka, Alaska],
ca. 1895.
In the Beginning Was the Word: The Russian Church and Native Alaskan Cultures

Fur-trading possibilities soon hastened the settlement of Alaska and the Aleutians. The Russian American Company, led by Grigorii Shelekov and encouraged by Tsarina Catherine the Great, established a colony in north America in 1784. The Russian Orthodox church founded its first mission in Alaska in 1794.

The online exhibition In the Beginning Was the Word: The Russian Church and Native Alaskan Cultures examines the Russian state and the Russian Orthodox Church in Russian America from 1794 to about 1915. It explores issues of commerce, the relationship of the Russian Orthodox Church to native Alaskans, and the preservation of the Aleut, Eskimo, and Tlingit languages.

Broadway, View Down Street,
Skaguay, Alaska,
American Landscape and Architectural Design, 1850-1920

Native customs remained strong in Alaska after U.S. Secretary of State, William H. Seward, purchased this territory from Russia in 1867. However, in 1948, the Cold War halted centuries of native travel back and forth across the Bering Strait. Only after the Reagan-Gorbachev Moscow summit in 1988 did the "Friendship Flights" from Nome to Provideniya allow Alaska Natives once again to share their mutual culture. At this time other economic, scientific, and cultural exchanges also recommenced.

• Explore Meeting of Frontiers, a bilingual, multimedia English-Russian digital library that tells the story of the meeting of the Russian-American frontier in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest. Search on the term Bering to see many items related to the Captain-Commander's voyages, for example, the 1732 Journal of Captain-Commandor Vitus Bering's Voyage to Kamchatka, the Journal of Captain-Commandor Vitus Bering and Lieutenant Sven Waxell written aboard the St. Peter from May 24, 1741 to September 7, 1742, or Georg Wilhelm Steller's Reise von Kamtschatka nach Amerika mit dem Commandeur-Capitån Bering.
• One of the principal features at the 1901 Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York was the "Alaskan or Esquimaux Village." Search on the term eskimo or esquimaux in Last Days of a President: McKinley and the World's Fair, 1901 to find reenacted scenes of life in the north, such as the Esquimaux Game of Snap-the-Whip.
• To see images of Russian Orthodox churches, native people, and native villages, browse the Harriman Alaska Expedition album in the collection Evolution of the Conservation Movement.
• Read the Today in History features on the Molokans, a group of dissenters from mainstream Russian Orthodoxy, or the development of the Alcan Highway which first connected the Pacific Northwest (from Dawson Creek, British Columbia to Fairbanks, Alaska).
• Search on the term Alaska in the following collections for more related images and stories:
  • American Life Histories, 1936-1940
  • Built in America, 1933-Present
  • The Evolution of the Conservation Movement, 1850-1920
  • Taking the Long View, 1851-1991
• Explore online the Smithsonian Institution's Arctic Studies Center dedicated to the study of Arctic peoples, cultures, and environments.

The Adams Family

Abigail Adams,
Engraving, ca. 1830-1860.

John Adams,
Lithograph, published ca. 1828.
From original paintings by Gilbert Stuart
Portraits of the Presidents and First Ladies, 1789-Present

Abigail Smith married a young lawyer by the name of John Adams on October 25, 1764. Their union launched a vital 54-year partnership taking the couple from colonial Boston through the politics of revolution, to Paris and London and the world of international diplomacy, and finally to Washington, D.C., where they became the first presidential couple to occupy the White House.

A talented commentator and chronicler of events with a broad knowledge of history, Abigail Adams left an important account of many of the events of the nation's founding in her letters. She and her husband corresponded regularly; first when he attended the Continental Congress and Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia between 1774 and 1783, and again from 1789 to 1800, when she traveled between the family home in Quincy, Massachusetts, and Philadelphia, where John Adams was serving as the nation's first vice president before becoming its second president in 1797.

After the presidential term, the Adamses retired to their family home where they spent the next 17 years. In 1825, John Quincy Adams, the couple's eldest son, moved into the White House, succeeding James Monroe to serve as the nation's sixth president.

Library of Congress, Adams Building Under Construction,
Theodor Horydczak, photographer,
ca. 1920-1950.
Washington as It Was, 1923-1959

• Architecture and Interior Design for 20th Century America, 1935-1955 contains a series of photographs of the Adams home in Quincy, Massachusetts, including the bedroom where John and John Quincy Adams were born and the younger Adams's commode. To find them, search the collection on Adams.
• In 1800, President John Adams approved an act of Congress providing for the establishment of the Library of Congress. The Adams building, initially known as the Library Annex, was completed in 1939 and renamed in honor of the second president in 1980. Search the collection Washington as It Was, 1923-1959 on Adams to find more images of the building and its construction.
• Search on Adams in Continental Congress and Constitutional Convention, 1774-1789 and Words and Deeds in American History to find more material documenting the historical contributions of this family.
• A number of books containing the correspondence of Abigail Adams have been published: to locate these titles go to the Library of Congress Online Catalog, select "Search by Name" then enter the term Adams, Abigail.