Discovering America's Identity

In this particular chapter, Wulf focuses heavily on defining America's identity, its wilderness would become the epitome of national character. In the early 1800's, Thomas Jefferson had doubled the size of the United States over night after striking a deal with a desperate France, known as the Louisiana Purchase. Jefferson stated, "It was the most important and beneficial transaction since the declaration of Independence." Jefferson being the science enthusiast he was, immediately set forth to get funding by Congress for a "scientific exploration" of the new land. While many federalist argued against the exploration, arguing that America's finances and interest should be focussed elsewhere besides an unknown wilderness. But the republicans majority rule in Congress set forth one of the most famous explorations in American history, the Lewis and Clark expedition. For Jefferson, the expedition would be a crowning achievement, America's westward expansion could finally begin.

Upon returning, the expedition had found a passage to the Pacific, amassed valuable information about Native American tribes, collected animal skins, bones and what Lewis described as a "pretty extensive collection of plants." But what had unintentionally been accomplished was the identity of national character. Before the expedition, America's most worthy subjects for American art were George Washington and dramatic war moments from the revolution. America now had Niagara Falls, the Hudson River valley and the Great Plains to name a few new national wonders. The New World's virgin landscape, fertile, imposing and wild, was untainted by history unlike that of Europe. Europe's antiquity became synonymous in the American mind with despotism. The sublime became America's language of national identity. Artists from around the world began traveling to its shores to capture these new sublime wonders. As America's wilderness became embedded within its consciousness, the boundless land became the embodiment of its future, its new identity.