Missouri History Museum

Missouri History Museum

We left the River Road today and started heading directly to St. Louis to visit the Missouri History Museum. We’ve been to St. Louis numerous times so our objective was to tour a new highlight. The museum is in Forest Park, the site of the 1904 World’s Fair. The museum’s permanent collections are about the history of Missouri and the 1904 Exhibition, but we headed immediately to the temporary exhibit celebrating the 250^th anniversary of the founding of St. Louis. The exhibit featured 50 people, 50 events, 50 images, 50 places and 50 objects. We spent most of our time reading everything about the 50 people. These people weren't necessarily the most famous people, but they were people who were influential. Some examples: James Eads who built the longest cantilevered bridge in the world over the Mississippi. He taught himself engineering and started his career building iron clad river ships for the Civil War. Susan Blow was the first to take the kindergarten concept of Germany and found a kindergarten in the U.S. The people selected seemed to have a lot of diversity, blacks and women in particular. For example, one woman was a Madam of a house of ill repute, but became the richest woman in St. Louis and was a key benefactor for the poor. The images were primarily photos of ordinary folk, but gave you the sense of how life was in St. Louis from the mid-1800’s until modern times. After lunch, we toured the permanent exhibits. The most interesting portion was on the civil war history and the conflicts Missouri had between slave holders and those who felt slavery was wrong. During the Civil War, families fought for both sides. I really wanted to see the 1904 World’s fair exhibit, but it was somewhat disappointing. Most of the saved objects were from the foreign countries which exhibited at the fair. For the people at the time they could learn about the Philippines, Japan and China. I was hoping they would have more from the exhibits predicting the future at the time. One interesting tidbit, the Jefferson building housing the museum was built using the profits from the World’s Fair. 

1904 World's Fair Exhibit