Missouri Historical Society
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The Missouri Historical Society seeks to deepen the understanding of past choices, present circumstances, and future possibilities; strengthen the bonds of community; and facilitate solutions to common problems. The Missouri Historical Society will pursue its work, fulfill its mission, adhere to its values and conduct its activities in a manner that is collaborative, engaged, flexible, inclusive, open, and responsible. The Missouri Historical Society is well-positioned to pursue new opportunities that expand both its impact and reputation. The society’s goals are to extend its reach, elevate its credibility, increase its audiences, and attract new funding sources.
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[edit] Address and Contact Info
Address: P.O. Box 11940, St. Louis, MO 63112-0040
Phone: (314) 746-4599
Fax: (314) 746-4548
E-mail: info@mohistory.org
Web page: http://www.mohistory.org
President: Robert R. Archibald
Online Finding Aid: http://slrlc.org/search~S2/
Archivists (principal contacts for advice on the collection):
[edit] Hours and usage restrictions
The Missouri History Museum is located in Forest Park, St. Louis, and is open Sunday through Saturday, 10 a.m.–5 p.m., and Tuesday, 10 a.m.–8 p.m. Summer hours (Memorial Day–Labor Day): Saturday through Sunday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m. and Tuesday until 8 p.m. The Library and Research Center is located at 225 South Skinker, St. Louis, and is open Tuesday through Friday, 12 p.m.–5 p.m. and Saturday, 10 a.m.–5 p.m. Exhibitions include Seeking St. Louis; Lindbergh; and 1904 World’s Fair: Looking Back at Looking Forward.
[edit] Collection Summary
The society’s collecting process seeks to serve and document all classes and all racial and ethnic groups in the region; its current collecting priorities in all areas reflect that goal.
The library contains over 90,000 volumes. The collection is strong in St. Louis and early Missouri history and biography, western travel and exploration, the American fur trade, North American Indians, and river transportation. St. Louis strengths include urban planning, ethnic groups, neighborhoods, architecture, politics and government, business, transportation, education, religion, art, and culture. The library has extensive holdings on the Lewis and Clark Expedition, the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, and Charles Lindbergh. Newspapers focus on the St. Louis region, including a complete run of the Missouri Gazette and Republican, the first paper west of the Mississippi (1808–1919), and also feature German language, African American, and early national newspapers. The library actively collects locally published magazines and newsletters, as well as business and trade catalogs. A comprehensive collection of St. Louis city and county directories spans 1821–1980. A large map collection contains rare 17th- and 18th-century maps of North America, maps and plat books of Missouri and St. Louis, and St. Louis fire insurance maps from the 1870s, 1890s, and 1940s. The library has an extensive local history collection, which includes county histories, census records, and indexes to birth, marriage, and death records, as well as the publications of other state historical societies. A music collection contains over 5,000 pieces of sheet music and 500 bound volumes. A scrapbook collection contains clippings from St. Louis newspapers on a wide range of local subjects. Staff-compiled indexes provide detailed access to these and many other resources.
The Manuscript Collections consist of over 2,200 separate collections, totaling over 5,000 linear feet of original manuscript records, dating from the period of the French and Spanish colonization of the Mississippi Valley to the present. The collection documents the history of the city of St. Louis, the Louisiana Territory, the state of Missouri, and the American West, and comprises a wide range of written records from private family papers, letters, and diaries, to government archives and military, business, and modern corporate records. Subjects in which the collections are particularly strong include colonial and territorial administration, the fur trade and western exploration, the American Plains Indians, the Mexican War, the Civil War, river history and steam boating, and St. Louis literary and intellectual figures and movements. Some of the more renowned holdings in the collection are the papers of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, relating to their 1804–06 expedition; Thomas Jefferson Papers; the French and Spanish Colonial Archives; the Chouteau family papers, which include records of the American Fur Company; David R. Francis’s ambassadorial papers from his tenure as U.S. ambassador to Russia from 1916 to 1918; the literary papers of Kate Chopin and Sara Teasdale; the papers of educators Susan Blow and William Torrey Harris; the papers of writer and social reformer Fannie Cook; papers from noted anthropologist and dancer Katherine Dunham; records of free African Americans in St. Louis and Missouri; and the official records of the St. Louis 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition Company; the Richard Gephardt Congressional Papers; the Pulitzer Collection; and the Eads Collection.The manuscript collection also includes the papers of Charles A. Lindbergh, which are currently restricted.
The Architecture Collections include records, blueprints, and designs of St. Louis architectural and design firms and documents the built landscape in St. Louis. It can be accessed by appointment.
The Photographs and Prints Collections contain more than 630,000 images representing a thorough pictorial history of St. Louis. Highlights include works of St. Louis commercial and amateur photographers and photojournalists, including 19th-century photographers such as Emil Boehl, Robert Benecke, and Robert Goebel and 20th-century photographers such as W. C. Persons, the Sievers Studio, and Edward Goldberger. Collections important to photographic history include daguerreotypes by Thomas Easterly, salted paper prints by the Langenheim Brothers, and views of the West by Alexander Gardner. St. Louis photojournalists are represented by Post-Dispatch photographers Russell Froelich, Buel White, and Lester Linck and Globe-Democrat photographer James Carrington. Special collections include the Charles Lindbergh photograph collection and the Louisiana Purchase Exposition (1904 St. Louis World’s Fair) photographs. The Swekosky Collection features photographs of early 20th-century urban life. Nineteenth- and early 20th-century lithographs, engravings, posters, advertisements, postcards, and trade cards are also well represented.
The Broadcast Media Archives collects audio, film, and video that document the history of 20th-century St. Louis and its broadcast industry, including the collection of Julius Hunter chronicling his 33-year career in St. Louis broadcast journalism. The collection also includes local family video and home movies and industrial productions. It can be accessed by appointment.
The Museum Collections consist of over 125,000 artifacts in a variety of formats that document the everyday life of the diverse inhabitants of the St. Louis region and demonstrate the connections between St. Louis and the points of St. Louisians’ origins and the paths they traveled westward. Major collections include 24,000 archaeological and ethnographic artifacts documenting prehistoric Mississippian mound-builders and historic woodlands and Plains Indian peoples; garments designed and manufactured in St. Louis’s bustling garment district in the early and mid-20th century; costumes from the dance company of choreographer and dancer Katherine Dunham; 19th-century volunteer firefighting artifacts; Missouri furniture; 2,100 armaments, including equipment and guns from the St. Louis gun shop of Samuel and Jacob Hawken; artifacts from the 1804–06 Lewis and Clark Expedition; more than 3,100 artifacts associated with Charles A. Lindbergh’s 1927 New York-to-Paris flight, as well as his monocoupe airplane; and over 1,000 artifacts and souvenirs from the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition document the rich material culture remaining from St. Louis’ only World’s Fair. More that 500 oil portraits and landscapes depict figures and scenes of the region, Missouri, and the American West. Among them are works by Chester Harding, George C. Bingham, Carl Bodmer, George Catlin, Currier and Ives, and J. C. Wild.
[edit] Usage Discussion
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