From Lewis & Clark video

Learning value of primary research sources

Two hundred years ago, President Jefferson asked Lewis and Clark to investigate lands of the Louisiana Purchase northwest of St. Louis. The president stressed he wanted them to bring back real examples of what they found.

In other words, he didn't want just written reports. He wanted actual samples of people, animals and plants that Lewis&Clark met on their two-year journey.

Former Clayton schoolteacher Scott Mandrell, as Merriwether Lewis, and his crew are over halfway through their reenactment of that 1804-1806 journey. When they get back to St. Louis in September, they'll also be bringing real examples of their research.

For example, Mandrell is lining up descendents of nearly two dozen Indian tribes that Lewis&Clark met on their original exploration.

Members of the reenactment team take time out during their journeys to show how Lewis&Clark research methods can help kids today.

Last month, Mandrell and others taped a video-conference that explains how to make reports from primary research sources. (For this and other Lewis&Clark reenactment reports, visit www.ali.apple.com/lewisandclark.)

The site of the video session on research was the St. Louis Mercantile Library on the campus of the University of Missouri-St. Louis. The Mercantile is the oldest U.S. library west of the Mississippi River.

The Mercantile also has one of the largest groups of original documents, pictures and artwork of the early days of the western frontier. Much of this one-of-a-kind research information is open for inspection by kids.

So, the next time a teacher assigns a research paper, you may find one of the best sources in the entire country is right here in St. Louis.

Charles E. Brown is the assistant director of the Mercantile Library. He urged kids, "If you want to add credibility to your report, mention you did your research at our library."

He said the Mercantile has over 70,000 printed items from the early days of westward expansion. One of the collections included papers from St. Louis fur trader Robert Campbell. (That name remains alive with the Campbell House Museum at 1508 Locust.)

Among Campbell's papers are his reports of fur trading in the Rocky Mountains. Fur traders were doing business with western Indians even before Lewis&Clark.

Reenactor Scott Mandrell points out Indians have a different opinion of the Lewis&Clark expedition than do Americans. For Americans, the trip marked the opening of the west.

But, Mandrell said, "For the Chinook Indians in the Pacific Northwest, Lewis and Clark was a 'non-event.' They'd already be trading furs with the French, Spanish and Russians. Lewis and Clark didn't even bring anything for trading."

There's another lesson from Lewis&Clark. Mandrell said, "History is often a matter of perspective. For Americans, the expedition was a big thing. For the Indians, it was the start of the end of their way of life."

Gen. William Sherman in council on the plains from Scenes in the Indian Country

Mandrell said there are 4.5 million descendents of American Indian tribes living today. He hopes to bring back to St. Louis members of the two dozen tribes that lived in the Louisiana Purchase lands for centuries before Lewis&Clark.

Deborah Cribs is assistant curator of special collections at the Mercantile. One of her jobs is to help people who come to the library to do research. For instance, one day last month, she helped a man doing research for a book about the early days of tennis in St. Louis.

St. Louis is a good research site for tennis. For instance, the famed Davis Cup-a symbol of international tennis supremacy-is named after St. Louisan Dwight F. Davis. As local parks commissioner, he put the first public tennis courts in Forrest Park. He donated the Davis Cup in 1900.

Ms. Cribs said the Mercantile collections offer great resources for researching the history of St. Louis neighborhoods. That's often a subject for history projects by St. Louis kids.

One great "neighborhood" resources are "morgue" clippings from the former St. Louis Globe-Democrat newspaper. Those files are from the 1920s to the paper's 1986 closing.

One of the research services provided by Mercantile "reading room" attendants is helping individuals focus the scope of their research projects.

"If a person doesn't know exactly what they want, we help them refine the topic to fit the size of the project," Ms. Cribs said.

The Mercantile personnel also help the researcher handle older primary source materials. Many documents are very fragile. In some cases, the helper may even turn the pages.

(For help with personal research, you can call the Mercantile Library at (314) 516-7247. Or visit the library's website at www.umsl.edu/mercantile.)