Kategoria BISAC: Travel >> United States - West - General

The Journals of Lewis and Clark are "the first report on the West, on the United States over the hill and beyond the sunset, on the province of the American future (Bernard DeVoto).

In 1803, the great expanse of the Louisiana Purchase was an empty canvas. Keenly aware that the course of the nation's destiny lay westward and that a Voyage of Discovery would be necessary to determine the nature of the frontier President Thomas Jefferson commissioned Meriwether Lewis to lead an expedition from the Missouri River to the northern Pacific coast and back. From 1804 to 1806,...

On the Santa Fe Trail, a collection of first-hand accounts by nineteenth-century overlanders, offers an intensely personal view of that arduous trip. In retrospect, the history of the Santa Fe Trail--crossing forests, prairies, rivers, and deserts--seems overlayed with the gloss of romance and chivalry. It is set off by heroic attitudes and picturesque adventures. And it has left a deep imprint on one region of the American West.

The trail crossed parts of five modern states--Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Colorado, and New Mexico. From the perspective of the overland trade, those...

Although the American Fur Company dominated the Upper Missouri fur trade during the middle decades of the nineteenth century, a number of small, independent firms (known as the "Opposition") flourished briefly at this time.

From 1858 until 1862, a young Philadelphian, Henry A. Boller, was one of the Opposition traders, serving first as clerk in Clark, Primeau and Company and then as a partner in Larpenteur, Smith and Company. His account of these years, based on his journals, presents a remarkably realistic picture of the daily life of the Indian as he existed more than a century...

In late 1846, Rudolph Friederich Kurz, a young and idealistic Swiss artist, came to the United States to study and paint American Indians. Because he also had to earn a living, he signed on with the Pierre Chouteau Jr. Company (commonly known as the American Fur Company) and traveled northward on the Missouri River to work as a clerk at Fort Berthold and Fort Union in present-day North Dakota. While living among fur traders and Indians of numerous tribes, Kurz filled a sketchbook and kept a detailed journal.

"On the Upper Missouri," an abridged and annotated version of his journal, is an...

This is an exact facsimile of the first guidebook of its kind to the full length of the famous Route 66, from Chicago to Los Angeles. It was first published in 1946. Route 66 is part of American history now, and this guide is useful for those who wish to follow the old road in lieu of driving on the interstate highways that have replaced it.

The book is divided into nine sections, corresponding to the journeys between stops by the average motorist. In addition, this structure makes the book useful to the traveler who wishes to follow only part of old US 66. Rittenhouse includes...