Pictures from an Expedition
Smith, author of Letters from Yellowstone, returns with another book set primarily in the 19th century American West, in which the entries have something of the same feel of the letters in her previous work.
Brief sections set in 1919 bookend the story. The Smithsonian Institution is interested in mounting an exhibition of works from the Starwood Collection. Augustus Starwood was a somewhat obscure painter of the mid-1800s. Eleanor Peterson, a scientific illustrator and friend of Starwood’s, is asked by the Smithsonian to explain a number of pictures and other materials in the Starwood Collection. Peterson knew Starwood in Philadelphia, but more importantly, he accompanied her to Montana in 1876 when she was engaged to record, in drawings, finds from an expedition in search of dinosaur bones. Things were unsettled in the badlands of Montana at that time: it was just after the Battle of Little Bighorn when Indian tribes were on the move, and were soon to be enclosed. Peterson complies with the Smithsonian’s request, but refuses to use the standard cataloging forms for each item in the collection. Instead, through written reminiscences, she engagingly relates the story of the expedition and the remarkable people she and Starwood encounter.
Smith is gifted in portraying the period and place. The characters come alive, as does the frequently tense setting in which we see them, where the perceived threat from Indians is very palpable, and rival scientific teams seem threatening. She uses this format just as skillfully as she did the epistolary format. Several months after reading the book, many of its images remain vivid in my mind.
