the State Historical Society of Missouri
![Floyd Calvin Shoemaker. [State Historical Society of Missouri Photographs Collection, P0137-014054]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2021-09/1-Floyd-Calvin-Shoemaker.jpg?h=aa138b63&itok=2zUm8Emt "Floyd Calvin Shoemaker. [State Historical Society of Missouri Photographs Collection, P0137-014054]")
When Floyd Calvin Shoemaker retired as secretary, librarian, and editor of publications of…
![Franz Sigel. [Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-DIG-cwpb-05090]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2021-09/1-Franz-Siegel.jpg?h=bac0bb5f&itok=WbrCB8IY "Franz Sigel. [Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-DIG-cwpb-05090]")
Franz Sigel, a soldier, editor, and public official, was born in Sinsheim, Baden, on…
![George Sisler. [Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-DIG-npcc-11451]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2021-09/1-George-Sisler.jpg?h=abb6705f&itok=5s4__7Ug "George Sisler. [Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-DIG-npcc-11451]")
George Sisler ranks among baseball’s all-time finest hitters. His longtime manager and…
![Denton Jacques Snider. [St. Louis Post-Dispatch, November 27, 1925]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2022-06/1.%20Denton%20Jacques%20Snider.jpg?h=f1182d8a&itok=Nm5PmR-N "Denton Jacques Snider. [St. Louis Post-Dispatch, November 27, 1925]")
Denton Jacques Snider, born on January 9, 1841, in Mount Gilead, Ohio, was a literary…
![Edgar Snow. [University of Missouri–Kansas City Special Collections, KC.19.2.9-11-00002]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2022-07/1.%20Edgar%20Snow.jpg?h=4cbe348b&itok=yI7zx-KA "Edgar Snow. [University of Missouri–Kansas City Special Collections, KC.19.2.9-11-00002]")
Edgar Snow grew up in Kansas City, Missouri, where he was born on July 17, 1905. After a…
![St. Louis Browns players and owner Donald Lee Barnes celebrate the team’s lone American League pennant in 1944. [Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis, Photographs and Prints Collection, N45028]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2021-09/1-St_Louis_Browns.jpg?h=2409fecb&itok=zmo6EN3t "St. Louis Browns players and owner Donald Lee Barnes celebrate the team’s lone American League pennant in 1944. [Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis, Photographs and Prints Collection, N45028]")
The St. Louis Browns were a professional baseball team that played in the American League…
The St. Louis Junto played a key role in shaping the politics of early nineteenth-…
The St. Louis–San Francisco Railway, popularly known as the Frisco, was a regional freight and passenger carrier…
![Andrew Jackson Henderson, a member of the Stone Prairie Home Guard, pictured later in the war after he joined Company G of the Fifteenth Missouri Cavalry Volunteers. He also served in Company L of the Seventy-Sixth Enrolled Missouri Militia. [Courtesy of Jeremiah Buntin and Kimberly Harper]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2024-04/1.-stone-prairie-home-guard.jpg?h=ecda3842&itok=l8eN27Wm "Andrew Jackson Henderson, a member of the Stone Prairie Home Guard, pictured later in the war after he joined Company G of the Fifteenth Missouri Cavalry Volunteers. He also served in Company L of the Seventy-Sixth Enrolled Missouri Militia. [Courtesy of Jeremiah Buntin and Kimberly Harper]")
The Stone Prairie Home Guard (SPHG) was the first Union military organization active in Barry…
![A view of the upper Missouri River by Karl Bodmer, circa 1830s. Print by Charles Vogel. [State Historical Society of Missouri, Art Collection, 1958.0047]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2022-04/1.%20William%20Sublette.jpg?h=618cae78&itok=l2w5KTpm "A view of the upper Missouri River by Karl Bodmer, circa 1830s. Print by Charles Vogel. [State Historical Society of Missouri, Art Collection, 1958.0047]")
William Lewis Sublette was born at Stanford, Kentucky, on September 21, 1799. The family…
![Leonor Sullivan. [Official Manual of Missouri, 1993–1994]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2021-03/1-Leonor-Sullivan.jpg?h=ed5b4c08&itok=FjX91wPe "Leonor Sullivan. [Official Manual of Missouri, 1993–1994]")
Leonor Alice Kretzer Sullivan was the first woman elected to the US Congress from a…
![Gladys Swarthout with costar Jan Kiepura from the movie Give Us This Night (1936). [New York Public Library Digital Collections, Billy Rose Theatre Collection, psnypl_the_5262]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2021-09/1-Gladys-Swarthout.jpg?h=2a2f5c0c&itok=IA3blMPc "Gladys Swarthout with costar Jan Kiepura from the movie Give Us This Night (1936). [New York Public Library Digital Collections, Billy Rose Theatre Collection, psnypl_the_5262]")
Gladys Swarthout, a concert and operatic mezzo-soprano, was born in Deepwater, Missouri,…
![Marion Talley. [University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections, J. Willis Sayre Collection of Theatrical Photographs]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2021-09/1-Marion-Talley.jpg?h=88722253&itok=XstERWmK "Marion Talley. [University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections, J. Willis Sayre Collection of Theatrical Photographs]")
Marion Talley was born on December 20, 1907, in Nevada, Missouri, the daughter of a…
![Charlton H. Tandy. [State Historical Society of Missouri, St. Louis Research Center, Black History Photograph Collection (S0336)]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2022-06/1.%20Charlton%20H.%20Tandy.jpg?h=cd64e863&itok=pQh0LDTO "Charlton H. Tandy. [State Historical Society of Missouri, St. Louis Research Center, Black History Photograph Collection (S0336)]")
Charlton H. Tandy, an outspoken leader of the nineteenth-century Black civil rights…
![Ted Drewes Frozen Custard on Chippewa Street, which was once part of Route 66 in St. Louis. [Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, photo by Philip Leara]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2025-02/1.-ted-drewes-frozen-custard.jpg?itok=P6Cj_H4S "Ted Drewes Frozen Custard on Chippewa Street, which was once part of Route 66 in St. Louis. [Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, photo by Philip Leara]")
When pundits make lists of the foods most associated with St. Louis, they often include such…
![Virgil Thomson. [Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-42533]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2022-07/1.%20Virgil%20Thomson.jpg?h=2342cc65&itok=wQD4NJzC "Virgil Thomson. [Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-42533]")
Pulitzer Prize–winning composer and music critic Virgil Thomson was born in Kansas City,…
![Melvin Tolson. [Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-134556 DLC]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2022-07/1.%20Melvin%20B.%20Tolson.jpg?h=c73b0fce&itok=4_Bo8Bag "Melvin Tolson. [Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-134556 DLC]")
Through most of his life, Melvin B. Tolson claimed he was born with the twentieth century…
![Father Augustus Tolton. [Image in public domain]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2024-11/1.-augustus-tolton.jpg?h=b5104c6a&itok=1ONYRtk_ "Father Augustus Tolton. [Image in public domain]")
Father Augustus Tolton, recognized as the first openly African American priest in the United States…
![Helen Francesca Traubel. [Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis, Photographs and Prints Collection, N13460]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2022-03/1.%20Helen%20Francesca%20Traubel.jpg?h=25357cd3&itok=Id6NGelY "Helen Francesca Traubel. [Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis, Photographs and Prints Collection, N13460]")
One of the world’s great Wagnerian sopranos, Helen Traubel was born in south St. Louis on…
While serving as Upper Louisiana’s lieutenant governor between 1792 and 1799, Zenon Trudeau…
![Bess Truman’s official White House portrait by Greta Kempton. [Harry S. Truman Library and Museum, 2008-149]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2023-01/1.%20Bess%20Truman.jpg?h=ed1f4180&itok=8klDJrns "Bess Truman’s official White House portrait by Greta Kempton. [Harry S. Truman Library and Museum, 2008-149]")
Born in Independence, Missouri, on February 13, 1885, Elizabeth Virginia Wallace, who as…
![Silas Turnbo. [Courtesy of the Springfield–Greene County Library District]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2022-07/1.%20Silas%20C.%20Turnbo.jpg?h=2741bb13&itok=Ot1erhP8 "Silas Turnbo. [Courtesy of the Springfield–Greene County Library District]")
Silas C. Turnbo collected stories from Ozarkers in the upper White River country of…
![James Milton Turner, circa 1870. [Lincoln University]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2021-03/1-James-Milton-Turner.jpg?h=d64323c3&itok=nkqu6MYa "James Milton Turner, circa 1870. [Lincoln University]")
Although numerous secondary accounts of James Milton Turner’s life list his birth date as…
![Marianne Billeron Vallé’s signature on a baptismal record in 1768. She signed as the godmother to Marie-Louise, the daughter of an enslaved Native American woman. [State Historical Society of Missouri, Ste. Genevieve Parish Records, C3040]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2023-12/marianne-signature.jpg?h=a2d61f04&itok=bibb_dHf "Marianne Billeron Vallé’s signature on a baptismal record in 1768. She signed as the godmother to Marie-Louise, the daughter of an enslaved Native American woman. [State Historical Society of Missouri, Ste. Genevieve Parish Records, C3040]")
Marianne Billeron Vallé was born in Kaskaskia around 1729, the daughter of…
The Gentry–Threlkeld–Van Horn Tavern, usually referred to as the Van Horn Tavern, was the last known log…