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Archiver > GEN-MAT-15 > 2001-09 > 1001288455


From: "H. Fazio" <>
Subject: [15] 1846-7 Mississippi River Views & History
Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 18:40:55 -0500


Mississippi River Panorama: Henry Lewis Great National Work, William J. Peterson, 1979. Softbound, 136 pages, absolutely gorgeous color plates, maps with cargo charts, thick quality paper, the former owner has written his initials on the cover, otherwise in good condition, indexed. If you had ancestors who lived anywhere along the Mississippi, see the views as they saw them in the 1840.

The beauty of this book is going to be difficult to describe. In the early 1840's as a Dusseldorf landscape artist, Henry Lewis envisioned painting a panorama of the entire Mississippi River, from beginning to end. The disappointments and hardships endured by Lewis not only in painting but in exhibiting his now lost enormous panorama were incredible. Only the few remaining copies of the book he published, Das Illustrirte Mississippithal, exist today, & it has been placed in the highest rank of Rare Americana.

His book contained a total of 80 segments of his beautiful panorama, & these are all included in this volume, along with a descriptive history for each plate. For example, the plate for Fort Snelling in Minnesota, gives the history of the site having been purchased from the Sioux Indians in 1805, how it came to be named & the different names it has gone under. It was the site of many Indian treaties, a training ground for soldiers, & had the longest service as a fort in the Upper Mississippi Valley (1819-1946, a physical description, & each of the surrounding views are covered. A minibiography of his life is also given.

While there may be shopping centers, etc. on some of these locations today, the illustrations are what your ancestors saw a hundred & fifty years ago from the beginning of the great river to its terminal at the Gulf of Mexico. The history and explanations that are given bring life to the paintings, & it also includes portraits of the artist & his "Ladylove", advertisements & handbills for both his book and his panorama. From Black Hawk's War & territory to the southern cotton plantations, the beauty of this book cannot be denied.

$15 postage paid


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