the State Historical Society of Missouri
![J. Christian Bay. [State Historical Society of Missouri, Jens Christian Bay Portraits, P0206-027598]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2021-09/1-J_Christian_Bay.jpg?h=8bcc14f3&itok=RY5bMuWK "J. Christian Bay. [State Historical Society of Missouri, Jens Christian Bay Portraits, P0206-027598]")
J. Christian Bay was born to Lars and Doris Christiansen Bay on October 12, 1871, in…
![James Beckwourth. [Public domain; photographer unknown]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2021-09/1-Beckwourth.jpg?h=518889fc&itok=01MEzfQk "James Beckwourth. [Public domain; photographer unknown]")
James Pierson Beckwith, better known as Jim Beckwourth following the publication of…
![Noah Beery Sr. as Captain Wolf Larsen in The Sea Wolf, 1920. [University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections, J. Willis Sayre Collection of Theatrical Photographs, JWS19510]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2022-12/1.%20Noah%20Beery%20Sr.jpg?h=c32e8d64&itok=o3e5ABLN "Noah Beery Sr. as Captain Wolf Larsen in The Sea Wolf, 1920. [University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections, J. Willis Sayre Collection of Theatrical Photographs, JWS19510]")
Noah Beery Sr., a film actor, was born on a Clay County, Missouri, farm several miles…
![Wallace Beery during his time with the Essanay film studio. [New York Public Library Digital Collections, Billy Rose Theatre Collection Photograph File, 81128]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2022-12/1.%20Wallace%20Beery.jpg?h=62801648&itok=6g7isCTj "Wallace Beery during his time with the Essanay film studio. [New York Public Library Digital Collections, Billy Rose Theatre Collection Photograph File, 81128]")
Standard reference works list film actor Wallace Beery’s birthplace as Kansas City,…
![Henry Marvin Belden. [University of Missouri Archives, Collection C:1/141/6]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2023-03/1.%20Henry%20Marvin%20Belden_0.jpg?h=53c868f4&itok=KpZx02e_ "Henry Marvin Belden. [University of Missouri Archives, Collection C:1/141/6]")
Henry Marvin Belden, a pioneer in the study of Missouri balladry and song, was born October…
Pitching immortal Satchel Paige, noted for his tall tales as much as his pitching, claimed that James “Cool Papa”…
![Robert Russell Bennett (right) with Salvatore Dell’Isola at rehearsals for the Broadway production of South Pacific. Bennett served as orchestrator for the show, and Dell’Isola as musical director. [New York Public Library Digital Collections, Billy Rose Theatre Collection Photograph File, TH-52233]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2022-12/1.%20Robert%20Russell%20Bennett.jpg?h=49354a9d&itok=i_VVfYms "Robert Russell Bennett (right) with Salvatore Dell’Isola at rehearsals for the Broadway production of South Pacific. Bennett served as orchestrator for the show, and Dell’Isola as musical director. [New York Public Library Digital Collections, Billy Rose Theatre Collection Photograph File, TH-52233]")
Robert Russell Bennett was born on June 15, 1894, in Kansas City, Missouri, the only son of…
![French artist Louis-Leopold Boilly’s rendering of members of an Osage traveling party in Europe, including Big Soldier (at right). [Smithsonian Institution, National Portrait Gallery, object # S/NPG.2011.5]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2020-07/Big-Soldier.jpg?h=86a29125&itok=SubP6M24 "French artist Louis-Leopold Boilly’s rendering of members of an Osage traveling party in Europe, including Big Soldier (at right). [Smithsonian Institution, National Portrait Gallery, object # S/NPG.2011.5]")
Big Soldier, a Little Osage war leader, was probably born in 1773 in a village near the Missouri River, in…
![A seventeenth-century engraving of Paris’s Hôpital Général de la Salpêtrière, where Marie-Claire Catoire spent her childhood as an orphan. [Courtesy of the Wellcome Collection (CCBY 4.0)]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2023-12/2.-marie-claire-catoire-billeron.jpg?itok=E78WqsG0 "A seventeenth-century engraving of Paris’s Hôpital Général de la Salpêtrière, where Marie-Claire Catoire spent her childhood as an orphan. [Courtesy of the Wellcome Collection (CCBY 4.0)]")
Marie-Claire Catoire Billeron’s name first appears in North America on the…
![Frederic L. Billon. [Billon, Annals of St. Louis in Its Territorial Days from 1804 to 1821 (St. Louis: Nixon-Jones Printing Co., 1888), frontispiece]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2020-07/Frederic-Billon.jpg?h=1128d52b&itok=O2ASotLW "Frederic L. Billon. [Billon, Annals of St. Louis in Its Territorial Days from 1804 to 1821 (St. Louis: Nixon-Jones Printing Co., 1888), frontispiece]")
Frederic L. Billon’s amateur antiquarian pursuits in the mid-nineteenth century resulted in…