Meriwether Lewis (1774-1809) and William Clark (1770-1838) were young men when Thomas Jefferson asked them to go west in 1804. The Lewis and Clark journey was shaped by the search for navigable rivers, the so-called Northwest Passage. Thomas Jefferson initiated this Corps of Discovery expedition, which included about 40 members and began in St. Louis. Their journey took them all the way to the mouth of the Columbia River at Fort Clatsop, where they turned around and returned in 1806. The diaries and maps that Lewis and Clark brought back with them revealed much about the American West, including the fact that an uninterrupted waterway passage from St. Louis to the western edge of North America did not exist. |
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The new Library of Congress exhibition, Rivers, Edens, Empires: Lewis & Clark and the Revealing of America, opened July 24 in the Thomas Jefferson Building and runs through Nov. 29. The Library has drawn on its deep and diverse resources for this exhibition; these materials are supplemented by items generously loaned by other institutions. The exhibition covers not only the Lewis and Clark expedition but also periods of exploration before and after 1804-1806. Maps, of course, play an important role in the Lewis and Clark story. A Map of Western North America published in 1790, shows a Northwest Passage that was a grail for many explorers. The map was the basis for Jefferson's Corps of Discovery. |
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