the State Historical Society of Missouri
![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]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2021-09/1-Alonzo_Johnson.jpg?h=28015916&itok=kGea3NPZ "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 who pioneered a…
![Josephine Winslow Johnson. [Simon and Schuster, photo provided by the Johnson Estate]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2025-12/1.-josephine-johnson.jpg?h=96864416&itok=u0dti5r- "Josephine Winslow Johnson. [Simon and Schuster, photo provided by the Johnson Estate]")
St. Louis writer and naturalist Josephine Johnson became the youngest winner of the Pulitzer Prize in fiction…
![John Rice Jones. [Columbia Missouri Herald: Twenty-Fifth Anniversary, 1895]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2024-06/1.-john-rice-jones.jpg?h=6234be0d&itok=zgUYOJ_3 "John Rice Jones. [Columbia Missouri Herald: Twenty-Fifth Anniversary, 1895]")
John Rice Jones, a pioneering jurist renowned for his erudition, was one of the principal framers of Missouri…
![Joseph James Jones, circa 1937. [Smithsonian Institution, Archives of American Art, Forbes Watson Papers, 1840–1967, 2976]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2021-09/1-Joseph_Jones.jpg?h=41bf56ee&itok=KEJRPQoc "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…
![Scott Joplin. [New York Public Library, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Photographs and Prints Division, 1692841]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2021-09/1-Scott_Joplin.jpg?h=edbf73d2&itok=TOkAbMii "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…
![Henry Kayser. [William Hyde and Howard Conard, eds., Encyclopedia of the History of St. Louis, vol. 2, 1899]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2022-07/1.%20Henry%20Kayser.jpg?h=4066759d&itok=88UTEwMM "Henry Kayser. [William Hyde and Howard Conard, eds., Encyclopedia of the History of St. Louis, vol. 2, 1899]")
Henry Kayser was a key figure in the intertwined worlds of politics and public improvements…
![Stephen Watts Kearny. [Engraving by Y. B. Welch for Graham’s Magazine, from an original daguerreotype by Peter A. Juley & Son, photographers. Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, California Faces: Selections from the Bancroft Library Portrait Collection]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2021-09/1-Stephen_Watts_Kearny.jpg?h=cf6f823a&itok=U41HI4sO "Stephen Watts Kearny. [Engraving by Y. B. Welch for Graham’s Magazine, from an original daguerreotype by Peter A. Juley & Son, photographers. Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, California Faces: Selections from the Bancroft Library Portrait Collection]")
Stephen Watts Kearny was born on August 30, 1794, in Newark, New Jersey. He was the…
![William Keil. [Oregon Historical Society, OrHi 4508]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2022-07/1.%20William%20Keil.jpg?h=f62b8f15&itok=w7echtbx "William Keil. [Oregon Historical Society, OrHi 4508]")
William Keil was born on March 6, 1811, or 1812, in Bleicherode, Erfurt, Prussia. His…
![Frederick T. Kemper. [James Addison Quarles, The Life of Prof. F. T. Kemper A.M., a Christian Educator, 1884]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2022-07/1.%20Frederick%20T.%20Kemper.jpg?h=cfc62ba2&itok=UDCnnJbH "Frederick T. Kemper. [James Addison Quarles, The Life of Prof. F. T. Kemper A.M., a Christian Educator, 1884]")
Frederick Thomas Kemper was an educator and the founder of Kemper Military School and…
![William T. Kemper in 1902. [Political History of Jackson County: Biographical Sketches of the Men Who Have Helped to Make It (1902)]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2023-11/1.-william-t.-kemper.jpg?h=e68902a0&itok=dLv2-_ZK "William T. Kemper in 1902. [Political History of Jackson County: Biographical Sketches of the Men Who Have Helped to Make It (1902)]")
Progenitor of two of Missouri’s most prominent banking families, William T. Kemper also…