The Story of the Lewis and Clark Expedition

By R. Conrad Stein

Book Overview

Describes the 1804-1806 Lewis and Clark Expedition, which took the explorers from St. Louis to the Pacific Ocean. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0516046209
• ISBN13: 9780516046204
• Release Date: January 1978
• Publisher: Children's Press(CT)
• Length: 31 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Age Range: 8 to 11 years
• Grade Range: Grades 3 to 6

Customer Reviews

A sound description of a voyage of discovery that should be studied by all American children

While a United States that stretched from the Atlantic to the Mississippi river would have been a powerful nation, it was the Louisiana Purchase that virtually guaranteed that it would be a great power. When President Thomas Jefferson bent his interpretation of the constitution to purchase the land, it doubled the size of the nation and added vast potential resources of minerals, metals and farmland. It also made it highly likely that a Civil war would be fought over slavery, as it was the extension of slavery into the lands west of the Mississippi that led to the irreconcilable differences. Therefore, it is ironic that a black man was one of the members of the Lewis and Clark expedition, a fact that is mentioned in this book. Stein is to be commended for noting this, as it was not commonly noted in the earlier history books. For example, I studied the Lewis and Clark expedition in school and I never knew that York, a black man, was a member of the expedition. The consequences of the Louisiana Purchase and the Lewis and Clark expedition to the infant United States are incalculable and they are events that should be studied in detail by elementary school students. This book is an excellent description of one of the greatest voyages of discovery ever attempted and it is astounding that only one member of the group perished en route. The death of the wildlife and natives was to come later.