Latest News & Announcements

The State Historical Society of Missouri board of trustees has elected recently retired U.S. Senator Roy Blunt of Springfield as president of the State Historical Society for a three-year term. The former senior U.S. Senator from Missouri has served as a trustee of the Society since 2005. Blunt’s term as president follows that of Virginia Laas, a professor emerita of history at Missouri Southern State University in Joplin. Laas will continue to serve as a trustee of the Society.

The public is invited to a free film screening and discussion on the 1939 Sharecropper Strike in Missouri, Feb.

History on Elm begins its fall season of free programs at noon on the second Tuesday of each month at the State Historical Society of Missouri. Programs are held September through June. Mark your calendar for our fall line-up!

Sept. 12 – Exploring Missouri’s German Heritage

The State Historical Society of Missouri is awarding Center for Missouri Studies fellowships to three history scholars in 2023.

The public is invited to a night of theater and history at the Center for Missouri Studies Nov. 17 and 18, 7:30 p.m. The GreenHouse Theatre Project will perform MO Love: Letters from the Archive, in collaboration with the State Historical Society of Missouri.

The complete collection of 91 Thomas Hart Benton Editioned Lithographs will be on exhibition at the George A. Spiva Center for the Arts as part of the opening celebration of the Harry M. Arts & Entertainment Cornell Complex in Joplin November 12, noon to 5 p.m. Visitors can see the exhibition, on loan from the State Historical Society of Missouri, until March 5, 2023. 

Students, scholars and the mid-Missouri community will come together Nov. 3 to celebrate the centennial of T. S. Eliot’s poem The Waste Land. Born and raised in St. Louis, Eliot went on to become an international literary figure and Nobel Prize winner. One hundred years after the publication of his most famous poem, a new BBC documentary reveals the secret love story behind his poem of personal anguish and alienation.

The State Historical Society of Missouri announces that Larry Gragg, author and Professor Emeritus of History at Missouri University of Science and Technology, will be presenting a program that examines the impacts of desegregation in Missouri higher education on Wednesday, November 2, 6 p.m., at the Center for Missouri Studies, 605 Elm Street, Columbia.

U.S. Senator Roy Blunt will deliver the annual My Missouri Lecture on Sat. Oct. 29, 1 p.m. at the State Historical Society of Missouri Center for Missouri Studies, 605 Elm St., Columbia. The senior senator from Missouri will reflect on how his upbringing shaped his career in education and politics. Registration for the event is open to the public.

The Missouri Bicentennial Quilt made its final stop at the Missouri Quilt Museum in Hamilton where it will be on long-term exhibition, along with the Missouri 4-H Bicentennial Quilt and a rotation of county quilts in the state. An opening reception for the two bicentennial quilts and a special quilt from Caldwell County will be held Oct. 18, 1 p.m. at the Missouri Quilt Museum, 300 E. Bird St., Hamilton.