Missouri Bicentennial Minute
Leading up to the Missouri Bicentennial, Bill Eddleman, associate director of the State Historical Society of Missouri’s Cape Girardeau research center, is writing, recording, and sharing the Missouri Bicentennial Minute. Eddleman will discuss some of the important moments that led to Missouri’s admission to the United States. The project is in partnership with KRCU Public Radio in Cape Girardeau. The State Historical Society of Missouri is a partner in the Bicentennial Alliance.
Our Bicentennial History: Missouri Through Primary Sources
Missouri State Archives, a partner in the Bicentennial Alliance, created Our Bicentennial History: Missouri Through Primary Sources in 2019 to celebrate the state’s upcoming bicentennial in 2021. Telling the story of the Show Me State through 200 primary sources, the online collection is broken down into six categories, including land, society, progress, adversity, leisure and people. From a list of supplies purchased by Meriwether Lewis as gifts for native peoples encountered by the Corps of Discovery to the ordinance abolishing slavery in the state prior to ratification of the 13th Amendment, Our Bicentennial History has something of interest for everyone!
The project was funded in part by Missouri Humanities Council, a partner in the Bicentennial Alliance.
Missouri Encyclopedia
The online Missouri Encyclopedia is a project of the State Historical Society of Missouri, a partner in the Bicentennial Alliance. The Missouri Encyclopedia will provide users easy access to authoritative information on the history and culture of Missouri. As an online resource, the Missouri Encyclopedia will be available to users throughout Missouri and far beyond the state’s borders. It will provide a comprehensive treatment of the state, while accounting for unique and distinctive aspects of local community life across Missouri’s tremendous regional diversity in geography, environment, cultural heritage, and social customs.
Missouri Crisis at 200
Two hundred years later, you can experience Missouri’s unusually long and controversial statehood process on Twitter at @MO_Crisis200. Historians at the University of Missouri’s Kinder Institute on Constitutional Democracy, a partner in the Bicentennial Alliance, are “live-tweeting” Missouri’s struggle for statehood, which launched the sectional crisis over slavery that would only be finally resolved by the Civil War. The tweets draw directly from the newspaper reports, private letters, and public documents created at the time.
Four Years to Statehood
Missouri Council for History Education and Missouri Humanities Council, partners in the Bicentennial Alliance, have created lesson plans to aid teachers in educating students about the state’s struggle for admission into the Union called Four Years to Statehood. The lessons introduce students to four young people who lived in Missouri during the years 1818 to 1821: a boy in French Ste. Genevieve, an Osage girl near Arrow Rock, an enslaved boy in Pike County and his descendants, and the daughter of Missouri’s first Attorney General. Each unit has a short narrative and a variety of activities where students can learn about the history of Missouri and the town and county in which they live. The units are designed for third through fifth grade, but can easily be used in middle and high school.
The lesson plans are available on the Missouri Council for History Education website for free teacher download, and workshops will be presented around the state to discuss their use. To learn more, contact Gary McKiddy, past president of Missouri Council for History Education, at gmckiddy2@gmail.com or Claire Bruntrager, Missouri Humanities Council development manager, at claire@mohumanities.org or 314.781.9660.
Show Me Missouri
Show Me Missouri is a state-wide collaborative initiative to document and commemorate Missouri’s bicentennial in 2021. This forthcoming digital exhibit will tell the story of Missouri and Missourians through the lens of 200 historically and culturally significant objects. Furthermore, the project will examine the comprehensive history of the state through a complex, inclusive, and critical interpretation. Each object will have an interpretative essay that will contextualize it in relation to the larger history of Missouri. Show Me Missouri will be a free and publicly accessible website for the use of scholars, teachers, both K-12 and collegiate students, and everyday Missourians.
It is our goal that Show Me Missouri can serve as a virtual and democratic space that encourages Missourians to reflect on our shared past, present, and future. Missouri’s bicentennial will, without doubt, evoke a sense of pride in the state’s history. But this landmark commemoration also can serve as a catalyst for residents of the state to reflect on our shared memory, identities, and histories. Show Me Missouri will offer an accessible space for everyday people, scholars, teachers, and students to celebrate the state’s diverse history and learn from its complex past.
The project is a collaboration between the Center for Midwestern Studies, the University of Missouri-Kansas City History Department, Springfield-Greene County Library District, and the Kansas City Public Library.
Missouri History Lesson Plan Project
The Missouri History Lesson Plan Project, an initiative of the Social Studies Education Program and Center for Regional History at Southeast Missouri State University, develops curricular materials to teach the history and geography of southeast Missouri through local and regional primary sources. The project is open to any students, teachers, professors, archivists, and the general public who may wish to contribute. Completed lesson plans, primary resources, and PowerPoint links are available online for anyone to access.
Greene County Archives Digitization
The Greene County Archives and Records Center houses county documents dating from 1833. These documents include a large collection of circuit court cases, including the murder case against “Wild” Bill Hickok for the murder of David Tutt, as well as the investigation into the murder of Bald Knobber leader Nat Kinney. It also includes a freedom suit filed in Greene County in 1834.The digitization project will scan and place these documents, and others of local and statewide significance online by 2021. These documents are important for their relevance in county, state, and national history.
Missouri Remembers: Artists in Missouri 1821-1951
In commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the State of Missouri, The Spencer Art Reference Library of The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in partnership with the Kansas City Art Institute and The St. Louis Public Library will create a free, online resource that documents the artists who lived in, or spent part of their careers within, the State of Missouri from its beginning in 1821 to 1951. Project partners will mine their artist files and archival collections to create individual records that describe each artist’s life and practice. The resulting online resource will allow anyone interested in learning more about Missouri’s artistic traditions to explore lesser-known artists and iconic figures, such as Thomas Hart Benton and George Caleb Bingham.
Whether you’re a collector, a teacher, a researcher or just love all things related to the “Show-Me” state Missouri Remembers: Artists in Missouri 1821 – 1951 is your gateway to exploring the artists of Missouri! The online artist biographical dictionary is currently in development with the goal of launching a searchable online database in early 2021. Get involved by regularly checking back to the project site and using the contact link to share information about Missouri’s artists.
Missouri Remembers has been made possible through funding from the Missouri Humanities Council and from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Wilborn Digitization Project
In 2017, the Jackson County Historical Society acquired a massive photographic collection that includes over 500,000 negatives from the Kansas City region and the Midwest. The photographs – known as the Wilborn Collection – include one of a kind images of people, buildings, events, organizations and neighborhoods taken by professional photographers. The collection dates back to 1921 and includes images through 2007. Special subsets include 360-degree panoramic photographs and photograph images or negatives that reflect changes in photographic medium and different dimensions. The collection comprises images from previous entities including Tyner Murphy, the Anderson Studio, Clarence Wilborn and several decades of professional work product by the collector, Chris Wilborn. The bicentennial project will scan, index and get the most important or historically significant images online by 2021. The JCHS Wilborn Collection was made possible by the generosity of Steve and Marianne Noll.