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Thursday, July 11, 2002
Contact: Peter Bailley
news@knox.edu
309-341-7715
Two-hundred years after their journey through the American west, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark are being inaccurately portrayed as "multicultural diplomats and proto-ecologists," according to Mark Spence, associate professor of history at Knox College. Spence is among the scholars interviewed for the July 8, 2002 issue of Time magazine that highlights the upcoming bicentennial of the 1804-06 Lewis and Clark expedition. Download Photo
In reality, says Spence, who is working on two books about the expedition, Lewis and Clark were "dutiful soldiers" whose 6,000-mile trek from St. Louis to the Pacific and back had two main objectives — claim the Louisiana and Oregon territories for the United States government, and discover a quick trade route to the Pacific.
Spence has written extensively about Lewis and Clark. He is completing a book, "Lewis & Clark and the Nature of Nation," and co-editing a second, "Lewis and Clark: Legacies, Memories and New Perspectives."
Spence told Time that public attitudes about Lewis and Clark have changed over the years. "A hundred years ago Lewis and Clark were viewed as symbols of industrial expansion, overseas imperial trade and so on," Spence said. "Fifty years ago, they were viewed as cold warriors in the forest; they epitomized the virtues of the company man."
Novelist Walter Kirn, author of Time's lead essay on the expedition, wrote that "each generation tends to pick a new [interpretation of Lewis and Clark] according to its temperament and needs."
Due to an editing error, Spence's name was omitted from the printed version of the article. The corrected text is on-line on Time's web site at http://www.time.com/time/2002/lewis_clark/lessay.html
For almost the entire 19th Century, there was little interest in Lewis and Clark, Spence says, in part because the expedition failed to meet its primary goal — discovery of a transcontinental route. "What they discovered was the worst way to get across the continent, the hardest way over the Rocky Mountains," Spence says. "None of the great western migrations followed their route, the first transcontinental rail lines stayed far to the south, and even today there are few roads or highways that follow any significant stretch of the Lewis and Clark trail."
The explosion of interest in Lewis and Clark in the past three years — including 1,000 web sites with more than 76,000 web pages — has been based on promotion of tourism and "an erroneous evaluation of the mission," Spence says. "A lot of people are trying to get back to some kind of 'original wilderness' — dressing up like Lewis and Clark or looking for places along the route that haven't changed in 200 years. What we're seeing is the convergence of historic re-creation and outdoor recreation."
By contrast, Spence's research examines the environmental changes and cultural history of the Lewis and Clark route. "I'm looking at the 99% of their route that has undergone extensive changes, such as the massive engineering projects that forever altered the Missouri River."
A member of the Knox faculty since 1997, Spence also is an authority on 19th century American beliefs about wilderness, and the removal of native Americans living in Yosemite, Yellowstone, and Glacier National Parks.
Founded in 1837, Knox is a national liberal arts college in Galesburg, Illinois, with students from 48 states and 40 nations. Knox's "Old Main" is a National Historic Landmark and the only building remaining from the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates.
Related Pages
Mark Spence
The Lewis and Clark Bicentennial website http://www.lewisandclark200.org/
The Lewis and Clark expedition and its legacies http://www.lewis-clark.org/
Jefferson's Instructions to the Explorers http://www.monticello.org/jefferson/lewisandclark/instructions.html
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