Book Talk: “Mapping the West with Lewis and Clark”

Please join us for a book talk featuring the Chief of the Geography and Map Division, Ralph Ehrenberg, and Smithsonian Institution curator emeritus Herman J. Viola as they discuss their latest work, “Mapping the West with Lewis and Clark” (Levenger, 2015). The authors will present and sign copies of their book on Tuesday, January 19, 2016 at 12:00pm in the Montpelier Room, on the 6th floor of the James Madison Memorial Building, 101 Independence Ave. S.E., Washington, D.C. This event is free and open to the public. Individuals requiring accommodations must submit a request at least five business days in advance by contacting (202) 707-6362 or [email protected].

English-born surveyor and cartographer, Nicholas King, was commissioned to create a planning map for Lewis & Clark's 1804 expedition into the American West. [[Lewis and Clark map, with annotations in brown ink by Meriwether Lewis.] 1803. Geography & Map Division, Library of Congress. — English-born surveyor and cartographer, Nicholas King, was commissioned by Thomas Jefferson to create a planning map for Lewis & Clark’s 1804 expedition into the American West. [Lewis and Clark map, with annotations in brown ink by Meriwether Lewis…] 1803. Geography & Map Division, Library of Congress.

A page from Meriwether Lewis' journal, 20 May 1805 (left) and map of a river named for Sacagawea (right). Nearly everyone involved with the expedition had a landmark or natural feature named for them. In these two images, you can see three different spellings of Sacagawea's name. Fig. 83, 84 from "Mapping the West with Lewis and Clark" (Levenger, 2015). — A page from Meriwether Lewis’ journal, 20 May 1805 (left) and detail from Lewis & Clarks 1814 map displaying a river named for Sacagawea (right). Everyone involved with the expedition had a landmark or natural feature named for them. In these two images, you can see three different spellings of Sacagawea’s name. Fig. 83, 84 from “Mapping the West with Lewis and Clark” (Levenger, 2015).

Please read the complete new release below:

Press contact: Guy Lamolinara (202) 707-9217
Public contact: Center for the Book (202) 707-5221
Individuals requiring accommodations must submit a request at least five business days in advance by contacting (202) 707-6362 or [email protected].

Story of Lewis and Clark’s Expedition as Told Through Maps Is Subject of Book Discussion and Signing

The expedition of Lewis and Clark was unprecedented – an exploration (1804-1806) of the Western United States in a country that now stretched from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

A new book on their journey documents the story in maps, with most of these documents coming from the collections of the Library of Congress’s Geography and Map Division. The authors of “Mapping the West with Lewis and Clark” (Levenger, 2015), Ralph Ehrenberg and Herman Viola, will discuss and sign their book on Tuesday, Jan. 19, at noon in the Montpelier Room, located on the sixth floor of the James Madison Memorial Building, 101 Independence Ave. S.E., Washington, D.C. This Books & Beyond event is co-sponsored by the Library’s Center for the Book and its Publishing Office. It is free and open to the public; no tickets are required.

The book tells the story of the Lewis and and Clark expedition in a new way: through the maps the explorers used and made. The maps present a mix of new information about the nation. They also make evident the influence of the American Indians, whose concept of a map was very different from that of the Europeans and yet so fitting for this vast new land with its unfathomable terrain.

Ralph E. Ehrenberg, chief of the Library’s Geography and Map Division, and his co-author, Smithsonian Institution curator emeritus Herman J. Viola, retrace the expedition with more than 100 images reproduced in exquisite detail.

The Library of Congress, the nation’s first-established federal cultural institution and the largest library in the world, holds more than 160 million items in various languages, disciplines and formats. The Library serves the U.S. Congress and the nation both on-site in its reading rooms on Capitol Hill and through its website at www.loc.gov.

The Library of Congress Center for the Book, established by Congress in 1977 to “stimulate public interest in books and reading,” is a national force for reading and literacy promotion. A public-private partnership, it sponsors educational programs that reach readers of all ages through its affiliated state centers, collaborations with nonprofit reading promotion partners and through the Young Readers Center and the Poetry and Literature Center at the Library of Congress. For more information, visit read.gov.

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PR 16-011
01/07/16
ISSN 0731-3527

Story of Lewis and Clark’s Expedition as Told Through Maps Is Subject of Book Discussion and Signing

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