Year: Senior

Major(s):  History

Mentor: Schloesser, Stephen

Department: History

Project Title: Experiencing the Life of a Jesuit Missionary in the Pacific Northwest

Project Abstract: When students reads history books, details can be absorbed but not fully understood due to the dryness of the text. Places, events and people are described in words and left to the imagination of the reader. And therein lies the problem with history, because mere absorption of the facts fails to bring the story to life. I intend to remedy this problem in the case of Father Pierre Jean De Smet and his days in the Rocky Mountain missions. By using twenty first century technology, I will digitize one of many maps made by this pioneer of the area in which he was a missionary. Mapping adds imagery to the text of the struggles of a Jesuit missionary on the frontier of the Pacific Northwest. By bringing stories such as his to life it creates more of an understanding to why subjects from the past are of importance.