the State Historical Society of Missouri
![Fannie Hurst. [New York Public Library Digital Collections, Billy Rose Theatre Collection, TH-22169]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2021-09/1-Fannie_Hurst.jpg?h=bd99ae02&itok=_VJZe3C7 "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 maternal grandparents…
![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…
![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…
In 1824–1825, the Marquis de Lafayette, famous veteran of the Revolutionary War, returned to America to make a…
![Albert Bond Lambert with Orville Wright in St. Louis, circa 1910. [Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis, Photographs and Prints Collection, P0059-00002]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2023-10/1.-lambert-with-orville-wright-p0059-00002-mhs-stl.jpg?h=8899aa07&itok=Th08gJ4r "Albert Bond Lambert with Orville Wright in St. Louis, circa 1910. [Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis, Photographs and Prints Collection, P0059-00002]")
Important in the history of business in Missouri, Albert Bond Lambert made even larger…
![Fran Landesman at the Crystal Palace, 1961. [State Historical Society of Missouri, Thelma Blumberg Collection, S0402]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2024-09/1.-fran-landesman.jpg?h=743325c3&itok=C1Xi1lIz "Fran Landesman at the Crystal Palace, 1961. [State Historical Society of Missouri, Thelma Blumberg Collection, S0402]")
Fran Landesman launched her career as a jazz lyricist in St. Louis in the 1950s. A native New Yorker, she was…
![Portrait of William Carr Lane by A. J. Conant after Chester Harding. [Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis, Photographs and Prints Collection, 1950-087-0001]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2021-09/1-William_Carr_Lane.jpg?h=c35f98b2&itok=z0lEeTib "Portrait of William Carr Lane by A. J. Conant after Chester Harding. [Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis, Photographs and Prints Collection, 1950-087-0001]")
Born on December 1, 1789, in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, William Carr Lane spent most of…