Live Music Archive
Librivox Free Audio
Metropolitan Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Internet Arcade
Console Living Room
Open Library
American Libraries
TV News
Understanding 9/11tv Oregon Rare Books Initiative CSPAN June 3, 2017 12:44pm-12:57pm EDT
12:44 pm
virginia, the particular type of licensing unique to the united states produced by that decision. i was interested in the case to begin with, it was really important underpinning of the system that people had not seriously looked at. >> the c-span cities tour and booktv's look at eugene continues. next a trip to the university of oregon to learn about the oregon rare books initiative which seeks to increase the use of rare books and archives in the classroom. >> the oregon rare books initiative was begun three or four years ago. so it's a ms. to increase the use of the rare book and special
12:45 pm
collections archives among faculty and students in the classroom at the university of oregon. it was founded in 2013, colleagues including myself have been upstairs in the vault where these are stored along with librarians who have helped us to find books we did not know we owned and it has been in a rediscovery of the amazing, rare and collectible books that have been here often since the early 19th century and using them in our research and classes in a way that hasn't been for several decades. and you invite a visiting scholar to give a talk, encourage that person to consult that collection upstairs and find some rare books that he or she has worked on and are of interest in that field so my own
12:46 pm
specialty about western exploration, the 18th, 19th century. we have a terrific collection of those and i can show you these. i was interested as other scholars have been in origins of the name oregon and many historians agreed or noticed one traveler and writer and self promoter named jonathan carver who published a book in britain in the 1778, his travel narrative was among the first published sources to use the name oregon. he used it as the name for a river, the river oregon which he named as one of four major rivers in north america. there was the mississippi river,
12:47 pm
the st. lawrence river, the bourbon river which was probably saskatchewan river blowing out of the canadian rockies and then fourth was the river oregon which flowed out of the rockies westward toward the pacific ocean so this most likely was columbia river but she didn't know the location of the columbia river at the time so there is some uncertainty whether it could have been the columbia river. there was a lot of interest even before the 18th century. finding out what major river flows west from the rockies to the pacific because that was likely to be major conduit for trade into north america just as mississippi and st. lawrence
12:48 pm
were the avenues of trade into the great lakes and central part of north america. if we go back to the geography of the river, this book by arthur dobbs, 1744 is called an account of the countries adjoining hudson bay. at this time the hudson bay company based in london had the title to a huge area of what is now canada. the english crown recognized this enormous tract of land and they exploited it for furs they acquired from native people. dobbs was a kind of an entrepreneur and rabble-rouser who wanted to force the hudson
12:49 pm
bay company to explore westward towards the pacific and find a ruse between the hudson bay and the pacific so this map in this book shows a number of lakes including the great lakes but the lake of the woods, some of these are real lakes and minnesota, manitoba. others are imaginary or had been based on the writings of explorers who speculated or invented new features and then it shows because the western part of north america was unknown to mapmakers, it shows the unknown coast. in oregon, there is that name, just sort of in an uncertain
12:50 pm
curve from there to hudson bay in canada. the idea is an inlet from hudson bay could lead to the pacific but this had yet to be filled in. and he wanted people to explore it and find out what it looked like. this is part of the collection, the cover has broken off so i hold it up here. with the name of william fenton, faculty member and book collector and the book has a map of oregon and washington which shows his special interest for collecting books and maps about this region and here is the title page, an account of countries adjoining the northwest part of america containing a description of lakes and rivers. over here, the map in the book
12:51 pm
by jonathan carver called a new map of north america from the latest discovery, 1778, engraved for carver's travels but compared to dobbs's map this shows a little bit more of the western coast of north america and then it has a river of the west which as i said earlier was another name for river oregon by carver but he did not apply that immediately to the map that appeared in his book. this follows roughly the root of the snake river. they are near the head of the missouri river.
12:52 pm
later, with lewis and clarke, the route that they followed across the continent across the missouri river. this book here is by gerhart frederick, a german, french explorer and geographer. this is very little-known and i rarely see it cited in the historical literature but the map is stunning. [speaking french] >> a new part of the discovery made by the coasts, the unknown coast of north america. in the 1730s and 40s russian
12:53 pm
explorers including baron, sailing with the russians and a number of others traveled from the west, the east coast of russia or siberia to alaska and the northwest. this map shows a number of barges. what i find striking is siberia on this map is a dense network of mountains and rivers and towns, very well known and well mapped. north america again has just ended. it would have been equally empty on any other map made in this period in the 1740s and 50s and the russians, this shows party of california, the spanish
12:54 pm
california, where they established this post at the southern limit of their explorations and this river here is labeled the river of the west. it is flowing out of lake winnipeg in manitoba. another theory about hudson bay, winnipeg, and the pacific by rivers. this is roughly analogous to what we saw earlier on dobbs's map. last, i wanted to show you by alexander mckenzie, british explorer connected with the northwest company, competitor to the hudson bay company and he was the first european to cross the full extent of north
12:55 pm
america. he entitled his book from 1801, voyages from montréal on the river of st. lawrence from the continent of north america to the pacific oceans in the year 1789, and 1793. he first went to the arctic ocean, called the mckinsey river. then, subsequent expeditions made it to the coast of british columbia in 1793. we have three copies of his. and were very important to history of cartography. thomas jefferson by mckenzie's
12:56 pm
the voyage, and not crossing the continent again, in the united states. >> we continue our look at eugene's literary culture. televangelist danuta pfeiffer and her memoir "chiseled" which looks at her lifetime including the 700 club show with pat robertson as he began campaigning for the republican party presidential nomination in 1987, and 1988. >> danuta pfeiffer worked on a series of radio intelligent programs but is best known as the cohost of the 700 club with pat robinson from 1983 to 1987 and in her book "chiseled" she talks about her time there and the rest of her life story. >> it wasn't a book about me. it was a
97 Views
IN COLLECTIONS
CSPAN2
Television Archive 
Television Archive News Search Service 
Uploaded by TV Archive on
