MoHistory

If you grew up in the St. Louis area, you likely saw a film at a Wehrenberg Theatres location at some point. Moviegoers can still recall the whispered name that played at the end of the company’s pre-movie video: “Wehrenberg. Wehrenberg. Wehrenberg.” The legacy of how it became the US’s oldest and largest family-owned movie …

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This post is part of a series exploring menus with holiday connections. When it first opened in 1892, Stix, Baer & Fuller occupied 815–821 Broadway near Morgan Street. Within a few years business was booming, and store owners decided to upgrade their space following the success of the 1904 World’s Fair. They acquired land previously occupied by …

Continue reading "Holiday Menus from the Collections: Christmas at Stix, Baer & Fuller"

During World War II, St. Louis Post-Dispatch war correspondent Virginia Irwin faced gender bias and German bullets while reporting from the battlefield. Despite being among many barrier-breaking women correspondents, today few history books mention her. “A Closed Shop” Born in 1908 in Quincy, Illinois, Virginia Irwin started working at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 1932 …

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December is National Tie Month, and to celebrate, I wanted to highlight some of my favorite neckties in the Missouri Historical Society Collections. Neckwear has been an important part of men’s wardrobes for centuries. From lacy jabots to crisp ascots, and neckties to bow ties, these accessories allow us to share a bit of our …

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On the afternoon of August 1, 1943, a crowd of thousands gathered at Lambert Field to watch a demonstration flight of the locally built Robertson Aircraft Corporation CG-4A military troop and cargo transport glider. While the crowd hoped to see an exciting aerial display celebrating local contributions to the war effort, they instead witnessed the …

Continue reading "Disaster in the Air"

If you grew up Catholic in St. Louis and are of a certain age, chances are you were once taught by a nun. The Archdiocese of St. Louis was once home to sisters from 52 religious organizations. Each nun was dressed head to toe in her order’s distinctive habit. They taught at dozens of grade …

Continue reading "Women in Black: St. Louis’s 4,400 Holy Mysteries"

Celebrating the Centennial In 1920 and 1921, Missourians prepared to celebrate a big milestone: 100 years as a state. How to properly commemorate this event was a question on everyone’s minds. Ideas included a themed state fair, a Centennial-themed drama reenacting key moments from the push for statehood, newspaper and journal articles about Missouri’s history and its founders, and a concert of …

Continue reading "Making Missouri: Past, Present, Future"

Technology has transformed the way we communicate, and social media has become a tool for entertainment and a place to discuss important topics. Today we have Instagram and Facebook. But for much of the 20th century and beyond, African Americans relied on Black newspapers as a conventional way to communicate with each other due to …

Continue reading "St. Louis’s Black Newspapers"

From the very start, Aloys P. Kaufmann’s mayoral career was entwined with the destiny of Lambert International Airport (then called Lambert–St. Louis Municipal Airport), when his predecessor perished in a glider crash during a demonstration. Sworn into office in 1943, Kaufmann served as mayor for six years, winning reelection in 1945 and guiding the city …

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Many of us observe and celebrate winter holidays in different ways—sometimes with family and friends and oftentimes with food. One way we can explore these holidays further is through the Library & Research Center’s menu collection, which spans decades and generations. This series explores menus with holiday connections. Whether they’re from department stores, club celebrations, religious gatherings, …

Continue reading "Holiday Menus from the Collections: Thanksgiving"

It’s been 58 years since President John F. Kennedy was assassinated as he rode with First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy in a motorcade through Dealey Plaza in Dallas. The tragedy of the president’s sudden death shocked and changed a generation. The event caused many ripple effects, including in St. Louis. In an alternate timeline, President Kennedy …

Continue reading "An Invitation to the President"

The Missouri Historical Society has received many items about the 1904 World’s Fair over the years, including large collections of papers and photographs from the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Company, tickets, invitations, and souvenirs. Over time, we’ve also received letters and diaries written by people who attended the Fair, but they’re rare. No one had offered …

Continue reading "A Tour of the Ivory City with Adele Quinette Phelps"

The Osage peoples have lived in what we now call Missouri for hundreds of years. While their ancestors first settled in the Ohio River Valley, they migrated to the Mississippi River Valley around 400 to 500 CE. Historians such as Andrea A. Hunter, the Osage Nation’s director and tribal historic preservation officer, speculate that the Osage were part of the Cahokia civilization—the society famous for building great mounds—around 1000 to 1200 CE. Living along the Missouri River and its tributaries, including …

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Like several sons of successful business founders—think George Herbert Walker or Dwight Davis—Albert Bond Lambert packed a lot of different activities into his life, all at the same time. Lambert’s father, Jordan W. Lambert and fellow St. Louisan Dr. Joseph Lawrence co-created a surgical antiseptic in 1879 that was inspired by the work of English …

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In 1979, Laclede’s Landing was turned into an ice cream lover’s paradise, when everything within a nine-block radius was dedicated entirely to ice cream! You name it, they had it at the festival—ice cream building, root beer floats, fried ice cream, astronaut ice cream, watermelon sherbet, ice cream “trees,” ice cream omelets, spumoni, and turtle …

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The story of how Missouri became a state takes us back to the early 1800s. However, the history of the people who lived in this area stretches back much, much further. In order to tell a complete and honest story about Missouri’s beginnings, we need to acknowledge and commemorate the histories of Missouri’s first inhabitants, as well as the people living today whose ancestral lands became part of our state. …

Continue reading "Making Missouri: More than 200"

When young Miles Dewey Davis III was just one year old in 1927, a devastating tornado descended on St. Louis and his hometown of East St. Louis. “I seem to remember . . .” he wrote in his autobiography, “something in the bottom of my memory. Maybe that’s why I have such a bad temper …

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Unusual objects are lurking in the Missouri Historical Society Collections! Some seem spooky to modern viewers, like death masks. Others sound gross, like art and jewelry made of human hair. And some present us with mysteries, like this coffin handle that spent more than half a century buried underground in Virginia before somehow making its …

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Written by TMH Apprentices Max Blatter, Marley Gardner, and Gavin O’Neal A few nights before Halloween in 1890, a crowd primed for a display of the supernatural in the lavish Pickwick Theatre instead erupted in a riot. A seance had gone horribly wrong, two mediums were on the run, and a rope was around the …

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Murder ballads are an integral part of American folklore and music history. For years, songs inspired by true crime have captivated the public. Some have been inspired by crimes that were mere footnotes at the time they were perpetrated, while others loomed large in the public eye. However, the truth rarely gets in the way …

Continue reading "The Truth behind the Murder Ballad: Duncan and Brady"