This catalog, which accompanies the traveling Benjamin Franklin Tercentenary exhibition, examines the many facets of Franklin’s life: printer, civic improver, scientist, diplomat, politician, and founding father. Many of the images in the book are from private collections, and have never before been published, giving this book a unique perspective on Franklin’s life.
While the Lewis and Clark expedition is most often thought of as a journey through the physical geography of North America, it was a journey through its cultural geography as well. In this companion catalog to Lewis & Clark: The National Bicentennial Exhibition, curator Carloyn Gilman weaves a fascinating cross-cultural examination of such universal subjects as diplomacy, curing, mapping, and language. The book is illustrated with hundreds of artifacts and period illustrations, many with direct connections to the members of the Corps of Discovery and the Native American tribes they encountered.
This book accompanied the opening of the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian on the National Mall in September 2004. Like the Museum, the book is divided into three main sections: Our Universes, Our Peoples, and Our Lives. Also like the Museum, there is significant emphasis on the self-definition of native identity, by Indian scholars, artists, and seers. This identity is expressed through nearly two dozen essays and poems, as well as hundreds of illustrations from throughout the Americas.
