The Lewis and Clark Expedition: A New Look at an American Adventure

Between May 1804 and September 1806, Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, the Shoshone-Hidatsa woman Sacagawea, Clark’s enslaved companion York, and 29 volunteers crossed the continent from St. Louis to the Pacific Ocean and back again. The publication of the authoritative 13-volume edition of The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition offers an opportunity to take a fresh look at one of the most remarkable adventures in American history.

Clay Jenkinson, one of the nation’s preeminent Lewis and Clark and Jefferson scholars, examines the dynamics of the journals: how they were written, under what conditions, and what it took to trigger a journal mention. His analysis of what the expedition’s six journal keepers included in their entries—and what they did not—offers a deeper understanding of the greatest land exploration in North America.

Jenkinson, the director of the Dakota Institute, is currently working on his third book on the expedition.

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