The Montana Historical Society (MHS) serves as Montana’s memory, and since 1865 has pursued its mission to collect and protect items of significance to Montana’s past. In this volume, MHS and other noted historians present 101 objects selected from the society’s vast collection, with full-color photographs and an interpretive essay for each artifact. The book is sectioned into eleven themes such as “Before Montana,” “Building Montana,” “Montanans on the Move,” and “Montana at War,” to name a few. Featured items include an Assiniboine painted buffalo robe; Jim Bridger’s Hawken rifle, binoculars, and case; the Fort Benton weathervane; a copper grotesque; Fannie Sperry Steele’s saddle; and a Willem de Kooning painting, “Woman.”
The cover features an iconic Montana image that links the past to present-daythe Square & Compass brand, still the emblem of fraternal orders of Freemasonry today.