Gary Moulton: Professor shines new light on Lewis and Clark
Gary Moulton said one of his associates told him he stopped giving lectures on Lewis and Clark because “people know too much anymore” about the famous explorers.
That fact that knowledge about the Corps of Discovery has grown so much in the last several years is partly the work of Moulton. For Lewis and Clark enthusiasts, his name is synonymous with the 13-volume collection of the explorers’ journals that the University of Nebraska history professor edited over an 18-year period and which is now considered the definitive version of the famous texts.
Moulton spoke to a packed house Monday night at the Hilltop School auditorium in Ilwaco, Wash., in the final presentation of the Ocian in View Lewis and Clark Bicentennial lecture series.
While Lewis and Clark have been American icons since their return from their western journey two centuries ago, their image among the public has evolved as new information about them has surfaced – and as the public’s taste in heroes has changed.
In the 1930s and ’40s the invincible Superman was a popular figure for Americans faced with the Depression and war. But today’s superheroes are more complex, like Spiderman, who is unsure of his new powers, Moulton said.
Lewis and Clark have undergone their own transformation from one-dimensional icons to more complex figures with their own unique quirks and failings. That’s especially true for Lewis, whose battle with depression has long been known but has received more attention in recent years.
“We wonder how he was able to get up in the morning,” Moulton said.
One of the biggest sources of debate over Lewis’ mental state are the lengthy periods on the trail when the young captain kept no journal entries, particularly in the later parts of the journey when the party was passing through uncharted lands. In one famous entry made on his birthday in August 1805 just before his pen fell silent, Lewis unburdened himself of his anxieties, leading many to believe that his emotional difficulties were overcoming him. But Moulton noted that at the end of the passage Lewis rebounds, putting his insecurities aside and writing, “I will go on.”
“Lewis’ optimism always pushes through,” he said.
It was after the expedition returned home that Lewis experienced a rapid decline. He floundered in his new administrative duties and business transactions and turned to drink and opium. On a trip to Washington, D.C. in 1809, he took his life at an isolated inn in Tennessee, without having written a word of the book on the expedition he had promised to Thomas Jefferson.
Clark, on the other hand, was always seen as the steadfast half of duo, a member of a family of Revolutionary War heroes who was a natural leader of men, who bolstered Lewis during his bouts of depression, and who led a long and successful life after the trek that made him famous.
That was until a trove of letters was found in the basement of a home in Louisville, Ky., in 1988. The letters, written by Clark to his brother, reveal intimate details of his life missing from the expedition journals, but they also show how badly he treated his slave York after the trek, denying him his freedom, beating and jailing him and even selling him off to a harsh new master.
“It turns Clark into something we never knew, a brutal slave master,” Moulton said.
That fact that knowledge about the Corps of Discovery has grown so much in the last several years is partly the work of Moulton. For Lewis and Clark enthusiasts, his name is synonymous with the 13-volume collection of the explorers’ journals that the University of Nebraska history professor edited over an 18-year period and which is now considered the definitive version of the famous texts.
Moulton spoke to a packed house Monday night at the Hilltop School auditorium in Ilwaco, Wash., in the final presentation of the Ocian in View Lewis and Clark Bicentennial lecture series.
While Lewis and Clark have been American icons since their return from their western journey two centuries ago, their image among the public has evolved as new information about them has surfaced – and as the public’s taste in heroes has changed.
In the 1930s and ’40s the invincible Superman was a popular figure for Americans faced with the Depression and war. But today’s superheroes are more complex, like Spiderman, who is unsure of his new powers, Moulton said.
Lewis and Clark have undergone their own transformation from one-dimensional icons to more complex figures with their own unique quirks and failings. That’s especially true for Lewis, whose battle with depression has long been known but has received more attention in recent years.
“We wonder how he was able to get up in the morning,” Moulton said.
One of the biggest sources of debate over Lewis’ mental state are the lengthy periods on the trail when the young captain kept no journal entries, particularly in the later parts of the journey when the party was passing through uncharted lands. In one famous entry made on his birthday in August 1805 just before his pen fell silent, Lewis unburdened himself of his anxieties, leading many to believe that his emotional difficulties were overcoming him. But Moulton noted that at the end of the passage Lewis rebounds, putting his insecurities aside and writing, “I will go on.”
“Lewis’ optimism always pushes through,” he said.
It was after the expedition returned home that Lewis experienced a rapid decline. He floundered in his new administrative duties and business transactions and turned to drink and opium. On a trip to Washington, D.C. in 1809, he took his life at an isolated inn in Tennessee, without having written a word of the book on the expedition he had promised to Thomas Jefferson.
Clark, on the other hand, was always seen as the steadfast half of duo, a member of a family of Revolutionary War heroes who was a natural leader of men, who bolstered Lewis during his bouts of depression, and who led a long and successful life after the trek that made him famous.
That was until a trove of letters was found in the basement of a home in Louisville, Ky., in 1988. The letters, written by Clark to his brother, reveal intimate details of his life missing from the expedition journals, but they also show how badly he treated his slave York after the trek, denying him his freedom, beating and jailing him and even selling him off to a harsh new master.
“It turns Clark into something we never knew, a brutal slave master,” Moulton said.