Discovery of the Mississippi by Ferdinand De Soto and His Followers, May 1541 Size:36x24 and the ordinary geometry of

and the ordinary geometry of municipal life

decades before Appomattox would rewrite his name

the line still short enough to fit on one sheet

issued in the year a bullet at a Washington railway station would cut his presidency to mere months — the lithograph carries the steady gaze of a man the country had only just begun to read

Discovery of the Mississippi by Ferdinand De Soto and His Followers, May 1541 Size:36x24 and the ordinary geometry ofDiscovery of the Mississippi by Ferdinand De Soto and His Followers, May 1541 a documentary engraving steeped in the heroic mode, casting the Spaniard and his armored retinue at the riverbank as if conquest were a sacrament. The composition treats a contested arrival as revelation, the Mississippi rendered less as geography than as inheritance. About the Source Bella Frye sources artifacts from the great American historical archive the Library of