Roadside America

This week we will look at two travel narratives from early America. The first is the famous journals of Lewis and Clark‘s Corps of Discovery and their 2-year journey across the continent in search of a Northwest water passage (1804-1806). The second is is the 1744 trip–by boat, and by rather primitive roads–of Dr. Alexander Hamilton (not to be confused with the Alexander Hamilton, man on the $20 bill, Jefferson’s Secretary of Treasury, who was killed in a duel with Vice President Aaron Burr in 1804. That’s a completely different guy), a young physician rambling alone with a keen eye to the Eastern seaboard world and a keen ear for the many accents and languages he encounters there.

We’ll use both of these as case studies for how to approach a primary source: the raw material of historical analysis. Also we consider the literary conventions in travel writing, and how these writers (and many others) narrate journeys across America–and how we remember, memorialize and mythologize such journeys.

Tues 9/22 Bring laptops – you’ll get assigned a portion of the Lewis and Clark journals in class, and we’ll talk about how to search within and analyze these sources. [H-Lab #1 due – email it by classtime]

Lewis and Clark homework document for Thurs 9/24

Thurs 9/24 Read Hamilton’s Itinerarium of 1744 (PDF – also posted on Blackboard) and bring it to class either as a printout or on your laptop/device. The word “Itinerarium” recalls ancient Roman road schemas, e.g. the Peutinger Table.

Just for fun, I mapped the Hamilton Itinerarium excerpts we have onto Google maps so you can see where his travels took him. Surprisingly, most of the place names he mentions have survived to the present. Notice anything about his route?