Project Themes and Topics

Show Me Missouri will chronicle a comprehensive state history focusing on the following themes and topics:
(If there is a topic not included in this list, contact us at midwest@umkc.edu).

  • Fort Osage
  • Canoe
  • French settlements (Chouteaus, Ste. Genevieve)
  • Colonial Spain
  • Founding of St. Louis
  • Fur trade objects

  • Louisiana Purchase
  • Daniel Boone
  • Lewis and Clark
  • War of 1812
  • Henry Schoolcraft
  • New Madrid Earthquake
  • Rush of pioneers to Boon’s Lick
  • Lead mines
  • Granby Stampede
  • Mining
  • Honey War/State of Missouri v. State of Iowa
  • Trail of Tears
  • Slavery
  • Enslaved people’s cultural objects
  • Missouri Compromise
  • Mormon Settlement
  • Mormon Wars
  • Platte Purchase
  • River trade (steamboats/flat boats)
  • St. Louis (emergence as a major western city)
  • Santa Fe Trail
  • Overland, California, Oregon, and Mormon Trails
  • St. Joseph, Pony Express
  • Butterfield Overland Mail
  • Old Wire Road
  • Arrow Rock
  • Early farming (hemp/tobacco)
  • Later farming (corn, hogs, cattle)
  • Missouri mules
  • German immigrants (cultural items)
  • Hermann
  • Missouri Rhineland
  • Irish immigrants
  • Jewish immigrants
  • Italian immigrants
  • University of Missouri at Columbia
  • Washington University
  • St. Louis University
  • St. Louis Botanical Gardens

  • Freedom Suits
  • Dred Scott
  • Bleeding Kansas
  • Civil War (guerrilla warfare, Union troop occupation, divided government, women’s roles, Border conflict, battles, St. Louis as staging ground,  etc.)
  • Western Sanitary Commissions (Western Sanitary Fair)
  • Jefferson/Benton Barracks
  • Island Mound
  • Emancipation in Missouri
  • Freedom Seekers

  • Reconstruction in Missouri
  • Jesse James
  • Bald Knobbers
  • Lincoln University
  • Minor v. Happersett (1869)
  • Hannibal and Eads Bridges
  • Railroads
  • 1876 and 1888 Democratic National Conventions in St. Louis
  • Industrial Homes (Juvenile Delinquency: Chillicothe Industrial Home for Girls, Tipton Industrial Home for African American girls, Boonville Training School for Boys, etc.)
  • Priest of Pallas in Kansas City
  • Veiled Prophet in St. Louis
  • 1896 Republican National Convention in St. Louis

  • St. Louis as growing a commercial and industrial center
  • KC Stockyards and Meatpacking industry
  • 1900 Democratic National Convention in Kansas City
  • Wine Industry
  • 20th century industrial agriculture
  • KC Garment trade
  • KC Board of Trade
  • Nell Donnelly/Donnelly Garment Company
  • Shoe manufacturers in St. Louis
  • 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair
  • 1904 and 1916 Democratic National Conventions in St. Louis
  • St. Louis and KC Zoos
  • City Beautiful Movement
  • Park and Boulevard Movement
  • Federal Reserve Banks
  • Liberty Memorial
  • Great Migration
  • Jim Crow laws/segregation
  • Lynchings/racial violence
  • Sundown Towns
  • Treatment of German-Missourians in WWI
  • Riots (East St. Louis 1917 and Kansas City 1968)
  • Women’s Clubs  (e.g. Athenaeum or the Women’s City Club in KC)
  • Fraternal Organizations
  • Boy Scout Band (Springfield)
  • Mexican immigration
  • Guadalupe Centers
  • Machine Politics
  • Organized crime in KC
  • Rise of the Second Ku Klux Klan
  • Prohibition
  • KC Plaza
  • Racially restrictive covenants
  • League of Struggle for Negro Rights (LSNR) St. Louis
  • 1928 Republican National Convention in Kansas City
  • Bagnell Dam project
  • Little River Drainage District (Boothill drainage project)
  • Route 66
  • Aviation, Trans World Airlines (TWA), and airplane manufacturing in Marshall
  • Hooverville in St. Louis (The Welcome Inn)
  • New Deal Policies
  • Sharecropping
  • Bootheel Sharecroppers Strike (1939)
  • Gaines v. Canada (1935)
  • Segregated Schools
  • WWII in Missouri
  • Defense Industry

  • Organizations (fraternal, ethnic, and racial diversity- CORE, NAACP, Freedom Inc., VFW, American Legion, Brown Berets, Masons, etc.)
  • United States v. Carmack (1946)
  • Shelley v. Kraemer (1948)
  • Swope Park and Forest Park (Desegregation )
  • Small town America/businesses
  • St. Louis Arch
  • 1953 Springfield Cobra Scare
  • Urban decline in St. Louis and Kansas City
  • Suburbanization and White Flight
  • Urban Renewal
  • Deindustrialization
  • Decline of small towns
  • African American and Latinx Freedom Struggles in Missouri
  • 1969 Walkout of West High School in KC
  • 1976 Republican National Convention in Kansas City
  • LGBT Activism and Organizations (Phoenix Society in KC, Gay and Lesbian Alliance, GALA at MU, Coming Out Columbia, Missouri Task Force for Gay and Lesbian Concerns (MOTF) Columbia, and St. Louis Task Force for Gay Rights)
  • Duren v. Missouri (1979)
  • Jones v. Mayer (1968)
  • McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green (1973)
  • Agricultural commodities
  • Missouri as a bellwether state

  • U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce
  • Act UP KC
  • Missouri v. Jenkins (1995)
  • Food Processing Industry (Tyson Plant Sedalia, Kraft Heinz factory in Kirksville, etc.)
  • Newer immigrant groups and demographic changes in the past 50 years
  • KC for Refugees
  • Jewish Vocational Service (JVS), refugee resettlement in Kansas City
  • KSMODA (DACA activism in KC)
  • Vietnamese community in Carthage
  • Congolese community in Kirksville
  • Bosnian community in St. Louis
  • LGBT Community Center of Metropolitan St. Louis
  • Ferguson
  • Union Strikes-Stand Up KC and Fight for 15

  • Scott Joplin
  • George Washington Carver
  • Phyllis Schlafly
  • Charlie Parker
  • Bennie Moten
  • Josephine Baker
  • Hannibal/Mark Twain
  • Tennessee Williams
  • Laura Ingalls Wilder
  • Rose O’Neill (Bonniebrook Homestead in the Ozarks)
  • Andrew Taylor Still
  • Madame C. J. Walker
  • Annie Turnbo Malone
  • Lucile Bluford (The Call)
  • George Caleb Bingham
  • Thomas Hart Benton
  • J.C. Nichols (racially restricted covenants)
  • Harry Truman
  • Tom Pendergast
  • Walt Disney (Laugh O Gram Studios)
  • John J. Pershing

  • Kansas City Jazz
  • St. Louis Blues
  • Springfield Country Variety Shows
  • Wine, Whiskey Distilling, Beer and Craft Brewing
  • Kansas City BBQ
  • American Royal
  • Religion (Catholic, Protestant, Assembly of God, etc.)
  • Shepherd of the Hills (Branson)

  • Missouri State Capitol
  • Missouri State Fair in Sedalia
  • Missouri and Mississippi Rivers
  • Lake of the Ozarks (Bagnell Dam)
  • Tourism in the Ozarks
  • Outdoor Sporting (hunting, fishing, etc.)
  • State Parks
  • Caves
  • Military bases
  • Bass Pro Shops

  • Missouri State Asylums No. 1 and 2
  • Osteopathy (Kirkville)
  • Excelsior Springs as a health resort
  • Weltmer Institute of Suggestive Therapeutics
  • 1930 Diphtheria Outbreak in Springfield
  • Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Department of Health (1990)

  • Tornados (Joplin, Ruskin, Worth, Caruthersville, Jeff City, etc.)
  • Floods (1927 Mississippi River Flood, 1993 Flood, KC 1951, recent Northwest MO)

  • KC Chiefs
  • KC Royals
  • KC Monarchs
  • St. Louis Cardinals
  • St. Louis Blues
  • St. Louis Giants/Stars
  • St. Louis Rams
  • MU-KU sports rivalry “The Border War”