the State Historical Society of Missouri
![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…
![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…
![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…
![Charles van Ravenswaay. [State Historical Society of Missouri, Charles van Ravenswaay Photograph Collection, P0014-027765]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2022-09/1.%20Charles%20van%20Ravenswaay.jpg?h=91b16d31&itok=0nDW2uXL "Charles van Ravenswaay. [State Historical Society of Missouri, Charles van Ravenswaay Photograph Collection, P0014-027765]")
Charles van Ravenswaay, an author, horticulturist, and museum director, was most of all…
![1. George Vaughn. [State Historical Society of Missouri, University of Missouri, Saint Louis Black History Project Collection (S0201)]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2022-09/1.%20George%20L.%20Vaughn.jpg?h=395d379b&itok=xQ9EjRqA "1. George Vaughn. [State Historical Society of Missouri, University of Missouri, Saint Louis Black History Project Collection (S0201)]")
George L. Vaughn, a prominent Black St. Louis attorney and political activist, was born in…
![Jonas Viles with his wife, Ruth, and their four sons. [Image courtesy of the Boone County Historical Society’s Digital Collections]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2022-11/1.%20Jonas%20Viles_0.jpg?itok=DhuXhAh3 "Jonas Viles with his wife, Ruth, and their four sons. [Image courtesy of the Boone County Historical Society’s Digital Collections]")
Jonas Viles, a longtime professor of history at the University of Missouri, was born in…
![Rolla Wells. [William Hyde and Howard L. Conard, eds., Encyclopedia of the History of St. Louis (St. Louis: Southern History Co., 1899)]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2022-11/1.%20Rolla%20Wells.jpg?h=8da26324&itok=CvyBApCu "Rolla Wells. [William Hyde and Howard L. Conard, eds., Encyclopedia of the History of St. Louis (St. Louis: Southern History Co., 1899)]")
Rolla Wells, a businessman and mayor of St. Louis, was born in St. Louis on June 1, 1856,…
![Otto Widmann in 1883. [Wilson Bulletin, September 1927]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2023-07/1.%20Otto%20Widmann.jpg?h=dcae2d79&itok=LL3zQoQ0 "Otto Widmann in 1883. [Wilson Bulletin, September 1927]")
![Roy Wilkins in 1963. [Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-DIG-ppmsc-01273]](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/2022-11/1.%20Roy%20Wilkins.jpg?h=0bae65ef&itok=7q4A-9Ux "Roy Wilkins in 1963. [Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-DIG-ppmsc-01273]")
Roy O. Wilkins was born on August 30, 1901, in St. Louis. Five years earlier, the US…