Upcoming Programs:

George Washington Carver: A Biography
February 16, 2012
7:00 p.m.
In Recognition of African American History Month

Gary Kremer, executive director of the State Historical Society of Missouri, will chronicle the life of renowned African American scientist and teacher George Washington Carver, beginning with a discussion of the political and social circumstances in Missouri at the time that Carver was born into slavery. George Washington Carver: A Biography follows Carver through his formal education to his decision to accept Booker T. Washington's offer to teach and do research at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. The focus is on Carver's career at Tuskegee and his major achievements, including his championing of crop rotation and the hundreds of products he created from peanuts, sweet potatoes, and other plants native to the South. Kremer portrays the famed scientist George Washington Carver as a brilliant, creative man, who nonetheless possessed very human peculiarities and frailties.

Dred & Harriet Scott: Their Family Story
March 22, 2012
7:00 p.m.
In Recognition of Women’s History Month

Like many Missouri slaves, Dred and Harriet Scott, a St. Louis couple, each sued for freedom in 1846 based on the time they had lived as slaves in free territory. When their cases were appealed to the Missouri Supreme Court, attorneys combined the separate freedom suits into a single case under Dred’s name, resulting in Harriet’s role being largely lost to history. The well-known case of Dred Scott eventually made it to the U.S. Supreme Court, where, on March 6, 1857, Dred Scott and his family were denied their freedom and the country was pushed a step closer to the Civil War. Ruth Ann Hager, a genealogist at the Special Collections Department of the St. Louis County Library, will explore how the Scott family finally secured their freedom and what happened to Harriet and the couple’s daughters, Eliza and Lizzie, after Dred’s death in 1858.

April 19 – George Spooner, Eyewitness of Holocaust History
In Recognition of Holocaust Remembrance Day (April 19)

May 17 - James Sullivan, Birge's Western Sharpshooters

June 21 - Dan William Peek, Live! At the Ozark Opry

July 12 - Robert Wiegers, Evolution of the Missouri Militia into the National Guard of Missouri 1804-1919

August 30 - Kevin Belford, Devil At The Confluence: The Pre-War Blues Music of St. Louis, Missouri

September 20 - William Winters, Captain Joseph Boyce and the 1st Missouri Infantry, CSA

October 11 - Mary Barile, The Haunted Boonslick: Ghosts, Ghouls and Monsters of Missouri’s Heartland

November 8 - Michael Dickey, The People of the River's Mouth: in Search of the Missouria Indians
In Recognition of American Indian Heritage Month

Financial Assistance for this project has been provided by the Missouri Humanities Council, with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Programming at the Missouri State Archives is free of charge and open to the public, with seating available on a first-come, first-served basis. For more information contact Emily Luker at (573) 526-5296 or emily.luker@sos.mo.gov.