Hiawatha and Minnehaha by Edmonia Lewis Hiawatha and Minnehaha by Edmonia Lewis Hiawatha and Minnehaha are 1868 sculptures by Edmonia Lewis. They are in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art on view in gallery 759. African-American, Haitian and Chippewa (Ojibwa) artist, Lewis, developed her neoclassical style of marble sculpture while working in Rome. Lewis was an admirer of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poetry, and in 1869 Longfellow visited her studio where he posed for one of her portraits which was shortly afterward acquired by Harvard University. Often working in themes that intersected her identity, Lewis focused a series of marble sculptures based on Longfellow’s much-referenced
Olympian Hiawatha the most scenic section through the Bitterroot Mountains. Major parts of "Olympian"'s route were acquired by the Soo Line Railroad (now Canadian Pacific Railway), and by the Burlington Northern Railroad (now BNSF Railway). The former Milwaukee Road (now Canadian Pacific) mainline from Chicago to St. Paul, Minnesota continues to see high passenger ridership on Amtrak's Chicago-Milwaukee "Hiawatha Service" and Chicago-Minneapolis-Pacific Northwest "Empire Builder". Several scenic sections of the route of the "Olympian Hiawatha" have become public trails and park land. These include the "Route of the Hiawatha" in the Bitterroot Mountains of Idaho, the "Route of the Olympian" along Montana's