Government and Politics Research Guide

• Annie White Baxter - Anna “Annie” White Baxter was the first woman elected to public office in Missouri and the first female county clerk in the United States.


• George E. Creel - George E. Creel was a journalist, politician, and author. As chairman of the Committee on Public Information during World War I, Creel sought to influence public opinion and gain support at home and abroad for the war effort.


• Richard Gentry - Richard Gentry was an early settler in Missouri who played an important role in establishing Columbia, Missouri. Gentry, a career military officer, served as the city’s first mayor.


• Thomas J. Pendergast - Thomas J. Pendergast was the leader of a Kansas City political organization known as the “Pendergast machine.” The Pendergast machine controlled local government and the Democratic Party in Kansas City and Jackson County, Missouri, during the Progressive era and Great Depression. He finally lost power after a series of political scandals.


• Carl Schurz - Carl Schurz was a Union general in the Civil War, a secretary of the interior, and a US senator. He edited and co-owned the Westliche Post, a popular German-language newspaper, and employed the young Joseph Pulitzer, who later became one of the nation’s most successful newspaper publishers, as a reporter. Schurz continued to support the Republican Party, and in 1868 he became the first German American elected to the US Senate.

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