MONTANA A BURIED HISTORY

Todd, Jim

Acrylic/Masonite

1976

Gift of Montana Federation

1984.63.01

The Executive Council of the Montana Federation of Teachers (MFT) commissioned Missoula artist and educator James Todd (b. 1937) to create this mural in observance of the United States' bicentennial. Todd noted that the painting "concentrates largely upon what I believe to be some of the major events and transitions in the labor and corporate history of the state." It includes pictorial references to the Lewis and Clark Expedition, the fur trade, the discovery of gold, the Battle of the Little Bighorn, the coming of the railroad, cowboy artist Charlie Russell, Butte's Speculator Mine disaster, the hanging of Wobbly organizer Frank Little, World War I's Sedition Act, suffragist Jeannette Rankin, the establishment of federal military bases and missile sites in the state, political and social movements associated with Indian rights and protection of the environment, and the plight of struggling family farmers. Click here for more detail on the events depicted.