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Bicentennial Exhibition
FRAMING THE WEST AT MONTICELLO:
THOMAS JEFFERSON AND THE LEWIS AND CLARK EXPEDITION
January 16–December 31, 2003
The centerpiece of the bicentennial observance at Monticello is Framing
the West at Monticello: Thomas Jefferson and the Lewis and Clark Expedition,
a major installation in the Entrance Hall of Jefferson's home.
The exhibition approximates the appearance of Jefferson's "Indian Hall"
circa 1807-09, when he displayed natural history specimens and Native American
objects sent or brought back by members of the expedition alongside other items
reflecting his encyclopedic interests.
Framing the West at Monticello includes items from Monticello's permanent
collections, pieces on loan from other institutions, and historically accurate
Indian objects made by Native American artists using traditional methods and
natural materials, re-creating those objects that have been lost over time.
The exhibition opened to the public Thursday, January 16, 2003, and will remain
in place throughout the year.
"Our
installation highlights the contributions of Jefferson's stewardship of the
Lewis and Clark Expedition and its tangible products to the diffusion of knowledge
about the North American continent," said Elizabeth Chew, Monticello's
associate curator of collections and curator of the exhibition. "Both a
hall of wonders and a crucible for scientific and ethnographic investigation,
Jefferson's 'Indian Hall' represented a transition between the 'curiosity cabinet'
and the modern museum."
Framing the West at Monticello offers a look at the Lewis and Clark Expedition
through the lens of Jefferson's vision and stewardship. As Jefferson's confidential
letter
to Congress of January 18, 1803, makes clear, his motivation for the expedition,
and its anticipated outcome, was the extension of trade across the American
continent, beginning with the Missouri River and the numerous Indian tribes
who lived along the river and its tributaries. Central to achieving this objective,
Jefferson believed, was finding a navigable water route across the continent.
Jefferson's instructions to Meriwether Lewis also emphasize his collateral purposes
for the mission: gathering information that would make a significant contribution
toward the understanding of North America, including details of the geography
of the continent; information about the lives and cultures of the native people
inhabiting it, and particulars of soil, vegetation, animals, mineral and fossil
deposits, and climate.
The installation focuses on Jefferson's employment of the material culture of
the Lewis and Clark Expedition to create what he called the "Indian Hall"
in the newly completed Entrance Hall of Monticello. More completely than ever
before, this presentation of the Entrance Hall communicates to Monticello's
more than 500,000 annual visitors the visual impact of the material outcomes
of the expedition. Using primary source documentation, including Lewis and Clark's
and Jefferson's packing lists and visitors' accounts of experiencing the space,
the exhibition re-creates the array of objects—from Native American clothing,
implements, and weapons to mastodon bones—that the Entrance Hall contained.
Through the installation, the visitor will not simply learn that Jefferson desired
to form a "museum" in his house to educate his guests, but will come
away with a more sophisticated understanding of the motivations that led him
to form such a display, and the meanings it had for Jefferson and his contemporaries.
Framing the West at Monticello: Thomas Jefferson and the Lewis and Clark
Expedition has three major interpretive goals:
- To increase public understanding of the purposes for which Jefferson sent Lewis
and Clark to the West and to inform visitors of his far-reaching ambitions for
the expedition.
- To demonstrate how the material culture of the expedition as it was manifest
in Jefferson's collections of "natural and artificial curiosities"
at Monticello fit within his Enlightenment concerns for universal knowledge
and empirical study and categorization.
- To show that the Native American artistic traditions experienced by Lewis and
Clark's party and eagerly absorbed by Jefferson are still alive in the hands
of the descendants of the people who encountered the "Corps of Discovery."
Despite
extensive research over many years, the present whereabouts of Jefferson's original
Indian collections are unknown. The Thomas Jefferson Foundation turned this into
an opportunity to involve contemporary Native Americans in this project and commissioned
Indian artists working in traditional media to create new pieces for the installation,
based on primary source documentation of what was here and study of surviving
historical objects in other collections. Among the artists who made objects for
the exhibition are Butch Thunder Hawk and students in the tribal arts program
at United Tribes Technical College in Bismarck, N.D., Jo Esther Parshall, Mary
Elk, and Dennis Fox, all of New Town, N.D., and Joel Queen of Cherokee, N.C.Objects on loan from other institutions that are on display in Monticello for at least parts of the year include three codices of the original Lewis and Clark journals from the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia, plant specimens collected by Lewis and Clark now at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, letters and documents relating to Jefferson's planning and execution of the expedition from the Library of Congress, William Clark's compass from the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History, and Meriwether Lewis' air rifle from Virginia Military Institute.
Throughout 2003, the guided tours of the house will highlight Jefferson's vital role in the expedition and discuss Lewis and Clark in the wider historical context of the early 19th century.
For more information about the newly furnished Monticello Entrance Hall, visit http://www.monticello.org/jefferson/lewisandclark/framing/indianhall.html.
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