American Museum of Natural History Research Library
author: American Museum of Natural History

Magnificent Voyagers: The U. S. Exploring Expedition, 1838-1842 (Exhibition)
birth: 1988 September 30
death: 1989 January 1
Exhibition. Opened September 30, 1988 and closed January 1, 1989. Located in Section 3, Floor 3 in Gallery 3 at the American Museum of Natural History. Magnificent Voyagers: The U.S. Exploring Expedition, 1838-1842, organized by the Smithsonian Institution and curated at the American Museum of Natural History by Stanley A. Freed of the Department of Anthropology, presented the scientific and maritime accomplishments of the U.S. Exploring Expedition.
Summary
Magnificent Voyagers: The U.S. Exploring Expedition, 1838-1842, organized by the Smithsonian Institution and curated at the American Museum of Natural History by Stanley A. Freed of the Department of Anthropology, presented the scientific and maritime accomplishments of the U.S. Exploring Expedition. The exhibition was designed to create the feeling of a ship's hold, with light shining through gratings and wooden support beams against white washed walls. The expedition was led by Navy Lieutenant Charles Wilkes with the flagship Vincennes, and five other vessels on a mission to explore the little-known areas of the South Seas. Over four years, the expedition circumnavigated the globe and covered 87,000 miles, charting hundreds of Pacific Islands, the Oregon territory, and exploring the coast of Antartica, proving the seventh continent's existence. Some of the expedition's charts were used as late as World War II. Expedition members included Titian Ramsay Peale, William Brackenridge, James Dwight Dana, and Horatio Hale (1, p. 1-2).
The exhibition received a grant from the Atlantic Richfield Foundation and the Smithsonian Special Exhibitions Fund. The exhibition at the American Museum of Natural History was sponsored by Johnson & Higgins and was circulated by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service. The American Museum of Natural History was the exhibition's seventh stop on its national tour, and it subsequently traveled to the Peabody Museum of Salem in Massachusetts (1 p. 2).
Four hundred objects, many of which were original specimens from the expedition, were on loan from more than 40 individuals and institutions. The American Museum of Natural History loaned nine books and paintings by Titian Ramsay Peale (1, p. 1; 2, p. 57). The exhibition was designed by Richard Molinaroli of Miles, Fridberg, Molinaroli, Inc. The exhibition planning committee at the Smithsonian included Chairman Herman J. Viola, Project Manager Carolyn Margolis, Editor-in-Chief Sue Voss, Coordinator of Special Exhibits Sheila Mutchler, and Assistant Coordinator of Special Exhibits Marjory Stoller (3).
Highlights (1, p. 1-2; 3; 4)
*Film footage taken aboard a sailing vessel rounding Cape Horn in a storm inside the exhibition entryway
*A short film about the expedition, which explains its origins through John Cleves Symme's belief in a hollow earth and Symme's wooden globe
*Maps and charts from the expedition
*Samples of flora and fauna from the expedition, including a new species of coral collected by James Dwight Dana
*Paintings and drawings of expedition crew members and shores, islands, people, and animals encountered
*Recreation of a shipboard cabin
*A 42-foot-long mural dramatizing the encounter of the Expedition vessel Porpoise and the French ship Astrolabe off the coast of Antarctica
*Paintings of Hawaiian volcanoes
*Objects collected from New Zealand, Fiji, Tonga, the Northwest Coast of North America, including a Fijian costume made of more than 300 feet of barkcloth
*A painting of the expedition's flagship, Vincennes, attributed to Charles Wilkes, and a model of the ship
This is a condensed summary of the exhibition. For additional information, see Sources and/or Related Resources.