Missouri History Museum

04/10/2025

“You might think you know St. Louis, but Collected shines a new light on the city’s history.” —MHS Director of Curatorial Affairs Hattie Felton

Explore St. Louis recently shared scenes from our latest signature gallery, "Collected." From the gavel used to abolish slavery in Missouri to a crazy quilt that incorporates taxidermy specimens, the new exhibit introduces you to a St. Louis you've never met before.

The Missouri History Museum aims to tell the story of St. Louis through well-known and never-before-seen artifacts.

04/09/2025

Dr. James Malachi Whittico, Jr. was widely recognized as the dean of Black physicians in the city of St. Louis. Beloved and respected, he was probably the longest practicing doctor in the region, with a career spanning 65 years. Here are five objects from our collections that help tell his story.

🎓 Meharry Medical College service award given to Dr. Whittico.
⚕️Dr. Whittico's name plate from the Mound City Medical Center, the first Black multidisciplinary practice in St. Louis, which he helped found.
🏅 National Medical Association medal denoting Dr. Whittico's status as a past president.
🗃️ Dr. Whittico's business card, featuring a photo of him at his desk.
🥼 Dr. Whittico's lab coat.

Learn more about our African American History Initiative and what we're collecting at mohistory.org/collecting-initiatives/aahi.

04/09/2025

“After lunch we took in some of the free shows then went into the glass blowers, where we saw men and women putting glass heads on pins, blowing vases, spinning glass, which operation consisted of heating a bar of glass about the size of a lead pencil. An almost invisible thread like a cobweb was drawn from this heated bar and run over a wheel about six feet in diameter at the rate of a mile a minute. These fine threads are then mixed with silk, about one strand of silk to ten of glass, and woven into a cloth like fabric, from which very fine dresses, sofa cushions, table scarves etc. are made. In this building we all received a little glass bow as a souvenir.”

That's how one visitor to the 1904 World's Fair described the Decknatel Glass Blowers attraction on the Pike. Follow along with us as we , and check out our exhibit for more stories from this impactful moment in St. Louis history.

📷 : St. Louis Public Library

04/08/2025

When creating labels for artifacts, presented us with an opportunity to have Dr. Andrea Hunter, Director of the Osage Nation Historic Preservation Office, tell the story of the Osage Treaty of 1808 and how it fits into the narrative of the Osage Nation.

04/08/2025

The University of Missouri-St. Louis's annual James Neal Primm Lecture in History is coming to ! Join us to hear Dr. John D’Emilio trace the evolution and growth of LGBTQIA+ history as a field of study.

Happy hour activities, ranging from local LGBTQIA+ organizations' resource tables to an MHS Historian's Corner, will start at 5pm. The main-stage presentation will begin in the Lee Auditorium at 6:30pm.

On average, more than 200 people attend Thursday Nights each week. Explore how the programs help tell St. Louis's story in bold, new ways at WeAreStLouis.com.

Thursday Nights at the Museum are presented by Washington University in St. Louis.

DETAILS: https://mohistory.org/events/finding-our-past

04/07/2025

From bridges to buildings, from the Arch to Art Hill, learn all about the ways architects and engineers combined art and engineering to create the landscape of St. Louis in this month's History Exploration Days.

April's topic, Art + Engineering: STEAM in St. Louis, will include themed workshops, crafts, storytelling, and more for families with students and learners from PreK through high school. Join us on Friday or Saturday from 10am to 1pm!

Check out full event details at https://mohistory.org/events/engineer-04-11-2025

04/06/2025

It's , so we're highlighting the story of asexual activist David Jay. When St. Louis teenager Jay realized he was asexual in the late 1990s, there was no easy way to connect with other people who shared his experiences. In 2001, he launched the Asexual Visibility and Education Network, a website that has since become a thriving international hub of information sharing and community building. Working with fellow activists whom he met online, Jay has organized to raise awareness and fight misunderstanding about the asexual spectrum, also known as aspec.

Learn more about LGBTQIA+ activism in our exhibit.

04/06/2025

in 1909, Robert E. Peary raised an American flag at the North Pole. When Peary returned to America, he was shocked to learn that his rival, Dr. Frederick A. Cook, had declared himself the first to reach the North Pole the year before. A congressional inquiry discredited Cook’s claim, but modern experts think Peary may have missed the pole’s actual location by several miles.

Peary’s final push into the deep Arctic was sponsored in part by Simmons Hardware, a national supply company headquartered in St. Louis that outfitted the expedition with tools and gear. As thanks for their support, Peary gifted George R. Simmons, a vice president of Simmons Hardware, this sledge and other items the crew had used in Greenland.

Now you can see it on display in our new signature exhibit, , which brings St. Louis history to life one artifact at a time.

04/05/2025

Make our new exhibit part of your weekend plans to see highlights from 150 years of collecting St. Louis history!

A new exhibit at the Missouri History Museum in Forest Park features 150 years of items donated to the Missouri Historical Society.

04/04/2025

“It seemed like the perfect fit for this exhibit because it was an object of extraordinary beauty but it was also an object that allowed me to talk about such an important part of St. Louis history—our Jewish heritage.”

The St. Louis Jewish Light recently shared the story behind the sterling silver Keser Torah crown that is now on display in our gallery.

In 1983, Duncan Bauman was honored by the St. Louis Rabbinical College for his years of uplifting Jewish stories in the local press. The gift? A ceremonial ‘Crown of the Torah’—rarely awarded to anyone outside the faith. Today, that same crown is on public view for the first time. The sterling...

04/03/2025

The many Cummings pieces in the Missouri Historical Society Collections range from simple dresses and suits to expertly beaded and heavily embellished evening gowns. Some of the garments were early knockoffs of French designer fashions, such as this pale blue avant-garde gown inspired by Paul Poiret’s hobble skirts and lampshade tunics.

This dress was worn by Eugenia H. Buder when she was in her early twenties. A park, school, and library are all named after her prominent family.

See the dress in person in our brand-new exhibit, !

04/03/2025

Did you miss it? Fox2Now's Tim Ezell traveled to the Missouri History Museum recently to explore our brand-new exhibit. Check it out, then visit yourself to see an array of artifacts that share the St. Louis story—including many that have never been on display before!

Tim Ezell traveled over to the Missouri History Museum, located at 5700 Lindell Boulevard. While at the museum, Ezell got the opportunity to talk to Director of Curatorial, Hattie Felton, to get a view of the new exhibit, spanning 6,000 square feet. The exhibit showcases some of the most iconic and....

04/02/2025

There’s still time to apply for our Summer 2025 Internship positions! Hurry though—all applications must be submitted by April 6, 2025.

LEARN MORE 👉 https://mohistoricalintern.aaimtrack.com/jobs/

04/02/2025

Climb aboard—the Great Big STL Architecture bus tour is back! Book your spot or join one of our April walking tours to like never before.

🎟️ Tickets start at $22, and MHS members get a $5 discount!
⏰ Walking tours are 2 hours long. The Great Big STL Architecture bus tour is 5 hours long, including an hour-long lunch break at City Foundry STL.

Sign up at mohistory.org/learn/see-stl

04/01/2025

Just ahead of our program about the history of community pharmacies in St. Louis, we're sharing the story of University of Health Sciences and Pharmacy in St. Louis, which is celebrating the 160th anniversary of its founding this fall.

Read more: https://mohistory.org/blog/uhsp

04/01/2025

Just like the individual artifacts in our brand-new exhibit, , so many different aspects of history make up the St. Louis story. Here are some of the topics we're exploring through our April programs.

🎵 The Music of Black St. Louis daytime program
⚕️Community Pharmacies in St. Louis, presented with University of Health Sciences and Pharmacy in St. Louis
🏳️‍🌈 Finding Our Past: Studying LGBTQIA+ History—Primm Lecture with John D'Emilio, presented with UMSL History Department
🌉 Art + Engineering: STEAM in St. Louis, our April History Exploration Days
⛩️ A Trip to the Pike daytime program
🐺 Legacy of Anna the Wolf
🍼 "American Delivery" Screening and Discussion, presented with Barnes-Jewish College Goldfarb School of Nursing
🚧 Underground Ingenuity: The Eads Bridge Tunnel daytime program

We're also continuing to make St. Louis history as accessible as possible. This month we're launching two new accessibility tools, Artificial Intelligent Remote Assistance (AIRA) and colorblindness glasses. Find out more at our launch event on Saturday!

Full details at mohistory.org/events. Thursday Nights at the Museum are presented by Washington University in St. Louis.

03/31/2025

What a weekend! We celebrated the opening of , the second of three new permanent galleries at the Missouri History Museum. The new exhibit shares St. Louis history one artifact at a time, and it'll never get old—new artifacts will rotate in regularly, and the smaller gallery at the back of the exhibit will change out completely every year.

Get a behind-the-scenes look at "Collected" and its rotating gallery for 2025, "The Life of Kids' Clothes," from KSDK News, then make plans to see the exhibit in person this spring.

About 50% of the collection is made up of never-displayed artifacts.