the State Historical Society of Missouri
Susan Curtis is professor emerita of history and American studies at Purdue University.
Articles Authored
![W. C. Handy playing at the fifth annual American Negro Music Festival in St. Louis’s Sportsman’s Park in 1944. [State Historical Society of Missouri, Arthur Witman 120mm Photograph Collection (S0732), 732.31462]](/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/2020-06/Handy-at-Sportsman%27s-Park.jpg?itok=u30zau4e "W. C. Handy playing at the fifth annual American Negro Music Festival in St. Louis’s Sportsman’s Park in 1944. [State Historical Society of Missouri, Arthur Witman 120mm Photograph Collection (S0732), 732.31462]")
Although William Christopher Handy spent relatively little of his long life in Missouri,…
![Scott Joplin. [New York Public Library, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Photographs and Prints Division, 1692841]](/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/2021-09/1-Scott_Joplin.jpg?itok=7UIgL6ux "Scott Joplin. [New York Public Library, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Photographs and Prints Division, 1692841]")
Known during his lifetime as the “King of Ragtime Writers,” Scott Joplin was an African…