WSU History Department Sends Sacajawea on the Road

PULLMAN, Wash. – Jeanne Eder, a 2000 graduate of Washington State University with a doctoral degree in history, will give an interpretation of the only female and Native American member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition in Vancouver, Pendleton, Ore., and Lewiston, Idaho, Nov. 16-19.

“We wanted to contribute to the public’s interest in Lewis and Clark by drawing attention to the American Indian role in the expedition,” said Roger Schlesinger, chair of the WSU history department.

Eder, a Dakota Sioux, presents Sacajawea as a bold, humorous, mature woman looking back on her teenage years when she made history. The director of the Alaska Native Studies Program at the University of Alaska, Anchorage, Eder will be joined at each location by a historian scholar and a representative of the local tribe that Lewis and Clark would have encountered.

The free programs, which include audience discussion and a reception following, are open to the public. Titled “Sacagawea/Sacajawea and the Lewis and Clark Expedition: American Indian Perspectives” they are sponsored by the WSU history department and the Center for Columbia River History.

Dates and Locations are as follows:

Nov. 16, 7:30 p.m.
Washington State University Vancouver, Student Services Auditorium, 14204 N.E. Salmon Creek Ave., Vancouver, Wash.

Historian William Lang of Portland State University and Ray Gardner, vice chairman, Chinook Nation, will accompany Eder.

Local Publicity: Jessica Lightheart, WSU Vancouver, (360)546-9602
Local arrangements:  Mary Wheeler, Center for Columbia River History, (360) 258-3289

Nov. 18, 2 p.m.
Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation
Tamastslikt Cultural Institute
72789 U.S. Highway 331
Pendleton, Ore.

Author Mary Clearman Blew of the University of Idaho and Roberta Connor, director of the Tamastslikt Cultural Institute, will accompany Eder.

Local Publicity: Charles DeNight, charles.denight@wildhorseresort.com, (541) 966-1973
Local arrangements: Susan Sheoships, education director, TCI, susan.sheoships@tamastslikt.org

Nov. 19, 7:30 p.m.
Lewis-Clark State College
Silverthorne Auditorium
Lewiston, Idaho

Nez Perce historian Allen Pinkham Sr. and historian Orlan Svingen of WSU will accompany Eder.

Local publicity: Gary Lindsey, WSU College of Liberal Arts, (509) 335-8522, glindsey@wsu.du
Local arrangements:  Deborah Snyder, LCSC, djsnyder@lcsc.edu, (208) 792-2726

The Center for Columbia River History is a consortium of the Washington State Historical Society, Portland State University and WSU Vancouver. The center’s mission is to promote the study of the history of the Columbia River Basin.