By J. Brooks Joyner

Among the many historic and cultural treasures that one will find in Nebraska is a unique collection of original watercolors and drawings by the Swiss-born artist Karl Bodmer. This collection is housed in the Margre H. Durham Center for Western Studies at Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha.

The collection of over 400 beautiful images documents an intrepid and historic journey of 1832–34 from Europe across America and up the Missouri, led by the German Prince Maximilian of Wied. While Bodmer’s watercolors and drawings represent the earliest pictorial accounts of the native peoples, topography, flora and fauna of this region, little traveled since Lewis and Clark’s expedition of 1802–1804, it is the journal of Maximilian that forms the comprehensive and detailed chronicle of each day’s experience and encounters.

After many years of anticipation, translation and editing, these original journals, considered by many to be one of the most important primary source accounts of the early American West, are being published by Joslyn Art Museum through the University of Oklahoma Press. Volume One will appear in print on May 5 at a reception for the Bodmer Society at Joslyn Art Museum.

The significance of these journals to the understanding of American history, especially the still pristine early West and the Native American people who populated these regions, cannot be underestimated. It is a publication of epic proportions that will be indispensable to scholars, students and the public in furthering our understanding of early America and its social and natural history.

To date Maximilian’s journals, which the prince collectively referred to as his Tagebuch, has received very little attention by scholars. These journals, each containing about 300 pages, are filled with the prince’s daily observations, much in exacting detail and all personally handwritten in a now obsolete German script.

Maximilian published an account of his expedition in 1839–1841, “Reise in das innere Nord-America,” which appeared in subsequent years in French and English translations. But the English edition was abridged from the German, and all editions are long out of print. Most significantly, none contains as much information as the manuscript journals, making Joslyn’s new publication the most complete and comprehensive produced to date for English readers.

Volume One highlights Maximilian’s first experiences in America’s burgeoning urban centers, including Boston, New York and Philadelphia; his explorations of the wild forests of eastern Pennsylvania; his concerns about the current cholera epidemic; and his joyful time spent in New Harmony, Ind. His journal detailed his satisfaction upon arriving in the frontier town of St. Louis, where he visited with General William Clark, the superintendent of Indian affairs, saw native warriors, and made preparations for the next portion of his journey up the Missouri.

The publishing project has been almost as fascinating and enigmatic as the journals themselves, having been considered and begun almost 20 years ago. Over the course of almost two decades, the project realization had been delayed for a variety of reasons, including a lack of both financial and scholarly resources.

Generous funding, including support from the National Endowment for the Humanities and many supporting donations from private donors, principle among them Howard and Rhonda Hawks, has allowed Joslyn Art Museum to realize this long-awaited and much-anticipated publication.