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,…

Rogers Hornsby in 1925.

Born on April 27, 1896, at Winters, Texas, Rogers Hornsby began his professional baseball…

Fannie Hurst. [New York Public Library Digital Collections, Billy Rose Theatre Collection, TH-22169]

Fannie Hurst, the daughter of Rose Koppel and Samuel Hurst, was born at the home of her…

Francis White Cloud. Portrait by George Catlin, circa 1844–1845. [Courtesy of the National Gallery of Art]

The Ioways did not live in what is now Missouri for much of the historical era.…

Lonnie Johnson performing in 1965 at the Folk Festival Show, Palisades Amusement Park, New Jersey. [Cornell University Library, Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Amsterdam News Photograph Archive, #8084]

Alonzo “Lonnie” Johnson was an extraordinarily gifted blues guitarist and talented singer…

Joseph James Jones, circa 1937. [Smithsonian Institution, Archives of American Art, Forbes Watson Papers, 1840–1967, 2976]

The biography of Joseph James Jones is both the story of the life of an American artist and…

Charles O. Finley, owner of the Kansas City Athletics, with Charlie O., the team’s mascot. [Jackson County Historical Society Archives, photo #2017.006.188]

Kansas City’s sports fans might be forgiven for overlooking or choosing to forget that…

Kathryn J. Kuhlman. [Courtesy of the Wheaton College Billy Graham Center Archives]

Kathryn Johanna Kuhlman, born in Concordia, Missouri, on May 9, 1907, became…

Dorothy Leake in the 1920s

Dorothy Van Dyke Leake, an educator noted for her ecological work and her efforts to…

Edward V. Long (left) at the inauguration of Missouri governor Warren E. Hearnes, 1965. [State Historical Society of Missouri, Gerald R. Massie Photograph Collection, P0016-045]

Edward V. Long was born on July 18, 1908, in Lincoln County, Missouri. He received his…