Wisconsin Historical Society

American Journeys Eyewitness Accounts of American Exploration Now Online

A buffalo hunt depicted in George Catlin's North American Indian Portfolio.

Some 17,600 pages of rare books and manuscripts chronicling more than four centuries of North American exploration are now just a few keystrokes away from every home, classroom and school library from coast to coast, thanks to completion of the Wisconsin Historical Society's American Journeys educational initiative. More than 700,000 students and 7,500 teachers across the nation will use the online resource to study the history of American exploration this school year. Wisconsin's First Lady Jessica Doyle publicly introduced the powerful new educational tool Thursday, October 30, during the Wisconsin Education Association Council convention in Milwaukee.

"Making history relevant and enticing to twenty-first-century elementary and high school students means using the Internet to reach them," said Mrs. Doyle in unveiling American Journeys. "American Journeys gives students nationwide online access to eyewitness accounts of explorers from Christopher Columbus and Ponce de Léon to Lewis and Clark — and beyond. I am proud that Wisconsin has taken the lead in such an innovative national project as this," she said.

Some 150 eyewitness accounts by explorers — varying in length from just a few pages to several thousand pages of text, drawings, maps, charts, diagrams, and handwritten diaries — can be brought up on library and classroom computer screens for viewing, downloading and printing. Any school or home-school family with Internet access can now view, print and download rare and one-of-a-kind documents that, until now, were unavailable to the public because of their rarity.

Everything in American Journeys comes from the library and archives of the Wisconsin Historical Society. The Society digitized and made the research collection available online with a $202,000 federal grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

The very earliest accounts in American Journeys go all the way back to circa A.D. 1000 when Norse voyagers reached North America. From Columbus's first voyage in 1492 through the mid-nineteenth century, nearly every decade of exploration is represented by one or more eyewitness descriptions. Roughly equal numbers of pages describe the Northeast, Southeast, Great Lakes and Mississippi Valley, Great Plains and Rocky Mountains, Southwest and California, and the Pacific Northwest and Hawaii. Nearly every U.S. state and Canadian province is included. Ethnic cultures from throughout Europe are represented among the explorers' accounts, as well as those of writers born in America. Native American authors are also represented by speeches of famous leaders and less well-known figures.

To make the material easy to find and use, the text of every page can be searched for specific words and phrases, and every document can be opened and read page-by-page like a textbook. Historians and librarians have indexed each page for quick retrieval, including tools for dealing with archaic language or misspellings used by the original authors. A background essay summarizes each document's contents and origin, and points readers to other sources of information on the Internet or in print. A reference map also accompanies each expedition, allowing readers to chart the explorers' progress. The site also includes teachers' lesson plans, a list of research topics and essays on how to use primary source materials for research.

Initial reaction has been enthusiastic. "The importance of using and teaching children how to use primary source documents is something often seen as a boring or dusty business," commented a UW-Whitewater professor of education. "This changes that idea entirely!"

Another perspective came from one of the first students to delve into the site, Doug Shultz, a tenth-grade student at Sheboygan-North High School and a National History Day finalist in 2003. "The content of the site alone is amazing," said Shultz. "To be able to see the actual diaries of early American explorers is incredible. What is even more remarkable is that these primary sources are quickly available to anyone with a Web connection."