<em>Missouri Indian, Oto Indian, Chief of the Puncas</em>, portraits made by Karl Bodmer during an exploration of the Missouri River and its environs led by Prince Maximilian of Wied in 1833–1834. The Missouria man portrayed is Mahinkacha (Maker of Knives). [State Historical Society of Missouri Art Collection, <a href=https://digital.shsmo.org/digital/collection/art/id/477/> 1958.0007c1</a>]

When French explorer Robert La Salle passed by the mouth of the Missouri River in 1682, he wrote that on its banks…

Walthall Moore Sr. [Official Manual of the State of Missouri, 1929–1930]

Walthall Moore Sr. was born on May 1, 1886, in Marion, Alabama, the son of John and Sarah…

Friedrich Muench. [State Historical Society of Missouri, Warren County Photograph Collection (P1141), 014066]

Friedrich Muench was born on June 25, 1799, the son of a Lutheran pastor in Niedergemuenden…

Mo-Hon-Go (Sacred Sun), an Osage woman, and her child. [State Historical Society of Missouri, Image Collection, 021180]

The most powerful tribal group in the early history of Missouri was referred to as the Wah-…

Ivory Perry addressing a crowd at a civil rights demonstration in front of St. Louis police headquarters on September 16, 1965. Photograph by Buel White, © St. Louis Post-Dispatch. [Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis, St. Louis Post-Dispatch Collection, N22497]

A community organizer, civil rights campaigner, housing specialist, and antipoverty…

Homer G. Phillips. Painting by Vernon Smith. [Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis, Objects Collection, 2016-058-0001]

Homer G. Phillips was born in Sedalia, Missouri, on April 1, 1880. He was raised by an aunt…

Saukie and Fox on the St. Louis waterfront by Karl Bodmer, 1834. [State Historical Society of Missouri Art Collection, 1958.0010c2]

The Sac and Fox were not native to Missouri, but were significant in Missouri’s territorial and early…

An early twentieth-century postcard of Stewart Bridge, where a mob killed James T. Scott in the early hours of April 29, 1923. [State Historical Society of Missouri, John W. Coffman Collection of University of Missouri Postcards (P305), 010783-1]

James T. Scott (1885?–1923) was the victim of one of the most…

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An unheralded Afro-Indian enslaved woman’s dreams of freedom propelled one of the most…

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…