Social Reform and Welfare Research Guide

Articles from Missouri Historical Review and Missouri Times

Adams, Lucinda J. "From the Stacks: The Twin Citians: A Black Women's Club and Its Battle for Civil Rights in Kansas City."
Missouri Historical Review 62, no. 110 (October 2015): 70-73.
Baker, James F. “The St. Louis and Suburban Streetcar Strike of 1900.”
Missouri Historical Review 101 (July 2007): 226-245.
Bek, Wm. Godfrey “A German Communistic Society in Missouri.”
Part 1: Missouri Historical Review 3 (October 1908): 52-74.
Part 2: Missouri Historical Review 3 (January 1909): 99-125.
Breckenridge, A. C., and W. G. Colman “Missouri as a Pioneer in Criminal Court Reform.”
Missouri Historical Review 33 (July 1939): 471-476.
Desloge, Taylor. “Creating the Lung Block: Racial Transition and the "New Public Health" in a St. Louis Neighborhood, 1907-1940.”
Missouri Historical Review 111 (January 2017): 124-150.
Epperson, Ivan H. “Missourian Abroad—George Creel.”
Missouri Historical Review 12 (January 1918): 100-110.
Ewalt, Donald H., Jr. “Patients, Politics, and Physicians: The Struggle for Control of State Lunatic Asylum No. 1, Fulton, Missouri.”
Missouri Historical Review 77 (January 1983): 170-188.
Fly, David Kerrigan. “An Episcopal Priest’s Reflections on the Kansas City Riot of 1968.”
Missouri Historical Review 100 (January 2006): 103-112.
Foley, William E. “Slave Freedom Suits Before Dred Scott: The Case of Marie Jean Scypion’s Descendants”
Missouri Historical Review 79 (October 1984): 1-23.
Garson, Robert A. “The Alienation of the South: A Crisis for Harry S. Truman.”
Missouri Historical Review 64 (July 1970): 448-471.
Grinder, Robert Dale. “The War against St. Louis’s Smoke 1891-1924.”
Missouri Historical Review 69 (January 1975): 191-205.
Guinn, Lisa G. “Building Useful Women from the Depths of Poverty: The Founding and Establishment of the Girls’ Industrial Home and School in St. Louis, 1853-1916.”
Missouri Historical Review 100 (April 2006): 125-140.
Hall, Thomas B. “John Sappington.”
Missouri Historical Review 24 (January 1930): 177-199.
Hamilton, W. J. “The Relief Movement in Missouri, 1820-1822.”
Missouri Historical Review 22 (October 1927): 51-92.
Keathley, Clarence R. “Reflections on Public Welfare in Washington County, Missouri, 1939-1941.”
Missouri Historical Review 82 (October 1987): 51-70.
Kremer, Gary R., and Thomas E. Gage. “The Prison Against the Town: Jefferson City and the Penitentiary in the 19th Century.”
Missouri Historical Review 74 (July 1980): 414-432.
Lander, Byron G. “The Making of Missouri’s Equal Pay Law and the Legislative Process.”
Missouri Historical Review 77 (April 1983): 310-328.
Lauer, Jeanette C., and Robert H. Lauer. “The St. Louis Provident Association: An Elitist War on Poverty, 1860-1899.”
Missouri Historical Review 77 (April 1983): 296-309.
Lee, Bill R. “Missouri’s Fight over Emancipation in 1863.”
Missouri Historical Review 45 (April 1951): 256-274.
Liljegren, Ernest R. “Frontier Education in Spanish Louisiana.”
Missouri Historical Review 35 (April 1941): 345-372.
Loeb, H. W. “One Hundred Years of Medicine in Missouri.”
Missouri Historical Review 14 (October 1919): 74-81.
Mangold, George B. “Social Reform in Missouri During the Last Century.”
Missouri Historical Review 15 (October 1920) 191-213.
March, David D. “Charles D. Drake and the Constitutional Convention of 1865.”
Missouri Historical Review 47(January 1953): 110-123.

“The Campaign for the Ratification of the Constitution of 1865.”
Missouri Historical Review 47 (April 1953): 223-232.
March, David O. “Missouri’s Care of the Indigent Aged.”
Missouri Historical Review 78 (January 1984): 202-218.
McAuliffe, S.J., and Harold J. McAuliffe. “Father Timothy Dempsey.”
Missouri Historical Review 36 (April 1942): 320-333.
McKee, Howard I. “The Marion College Episode in Northeast Missouri History.”
Missouri Historical Review 36 (April 1942): 299-319.
McMillan, Margaret and Monia Morris Cook. “Educational Opportunities in Early Missouri."
Part 1: Missouri Historical Review 33, No. 3 (April 1939): 307-325.
Part 2: Missouri Historical Review 33, No. 4 (July 1939): 477-498.
McVicar, Michael J. “Aggressive Philanthropy: Progressivism, Conservatism, and the William Volker Charities Fund.”
Missouri Historical Review 105 (July 2011): 191-212.
Meriwether, Lee. “A Century of Labor in Missouri.”
Missouri Historical Review 15 (October 1920): 163-175.
Merkel, Benjamin. “The Abolition Aspects of Missouri’s Antislavery Controversy.”
Missouri Historical Review 44 (April 1950): 232-253.
Miller, William T. “The Progressive Movement in Missouri.”
Missouri Historical Review 22 (July 1928): 456-501.
Morgan, Georgia Cook. “India Edwards: Distaff Politician of the Truman Era.”
Missouri Historical Review 78 (April 1984): 293-310.
Morris, Monia Cook. “The History of Woman Suffrage in Missouri, 1867-1901.”
Missouri Historical Review 25 (October 1930): 67-82.
Nolen, Russell M. “The Labor Movement in St. Louis from 1860 to 1890.”
Missouri Historical Review 34 (January 1940): 157-181.

“The Labor Movement in St. Louis Prior to the Civil War.”
Missouri Historical Review 34 (October 1939): 18-37.
Phillips, C.A. “A Century of Education in Missouri.”
Missouri Historical Review 15 (January 1921): 298-314.
Quaife, Milo M. “The Changes of a Half a Century.”
Missouri Historical Review 43 (January 1949): 115-127.
Ritter, Luke "Mothers against the Bomb: The Baby Tooth Survey and the Nuclear Test Ban Movement in St. Louis, 1954-1969."
Missouri Historical Review 112 (January 2018): 107-138.
Romanofsky, Peter. “The Public Is Aroused: The Missouri Children’s Code Commission, 1915-1919.”
Missouri Historical Review 68 (January 1974): 204-222.
Scott, Mary Semple. “History of Woman Suffrage in Missouri.”
Missouri Historical Review 14 (April-July 1920): 281-384.
Shoemaker, Floyd C. “Shelby County, Home of Experimentation, Progress, and Good Citizenship.”
Missouri Historical Review 50 (April 1956): 259-270.
Sosey, Frank H. “Palmyra and Its Historical Environment.”
Missouri Historical Review 23 (April 1929): 361-379.
Stepenoff, Bonnie. “Child Savers and the St. Louis Newsboys, 1896-1948.”
Missouri Historical Review 104 (April 2010): 125-137.
Sullivan, Margaret. “Fighting for Irish Freedom, St. Louis Irish-Americans, 1918-1922.”
Missouri Historical Review 65 (January 1971): 184-206.
Templin, Lucinda de Leftwich. “Two Illustrious Pioneers in the Education of Women in Missouri.”
Missouri Historical Review 21 (April 1927): 420-437.
Towey, Martin G., and Margaret Lopiccolo Sullivan. “The Knights of Father Mathew: Parallel Ethnic Reform.”
Missouri Historical Review 75 (January 1981): 168-183.
Troen, Selwyn K. “Operation Headstart: The Beginnings of the Public School Kindergarten Movement.”
Missouri Historical Review 66 (January 1972): 211-229.
Vaughn, Philip H. “President Truman’s Committee on Civil Rights: The Urban Implications.”
Missouri Historical Review 66 (April 1972): 413-430.

“The Truman Administration’s Fair Deal for Black America.”
Missouri Historical Review 70 (April 1976): 291-305.
Windell, Marie George. “The Background of Reform on the Missouri Frontier.”
Missouri Historical Review 39 (January 1945): 155-183.

“Reform in the Roaring Forties and Fifties.”
Missouri Historical Review 39 (April 1945): 291-319.
Zornow, William Frank. “The Missouri Radicals and the Election of 1864.”
Missouri Historical Review 45 (July 1951): 354-370.

Catalog

Many of the State Historical Society of Missouri’s holdings are included in the SHSMO online catalog. The State Historical Society holds published sources on social reform and welfare that researchers can locate in the catalog. Specific search terms to use include "social reform," "temperance," "abolition," and "Missouri education reform."

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Historic Missourian Biographies

Manuscripts

The State Historical Society of Missouri's manuscript collection includes records of individuals and organizations involved in meeting social welfare needs, such as charities and orphanages, or those promoting reform through lobbying, neighborhood coalitions, church groups, and social service organizations that promote social welfare. Social reform and welfare is a broad topic covering movements as diverse as abolition, the development of public schools, prison reform, civil rights, women's rights, and care of the elderly. Some examples of collections available through the State Historical Society of Missouri include the Missouri Association for Social Welfare Records and the papers of Hayes Ayres Richardson, director of welfare for the City of Kansas City, Missouri, from 1940 to 1959.

View All Social Reform and Welfare Manuscript Collections

Newspapers

Newspapers have long had a role in the social reform and welfare of their communities. For instance, Elijah Lovejoy founded the St. Louis Observer to advocate for the abolition movement. Labor newspapers promote raising working conditions of their members and often advocate for improvements in the community even outside of the workday. Many of the newspapers below are focused on the abolitionist, temperance, or labor movements. Researchers may also want to explore the newspapers linked in our African-American Experience, Immigrant Experience, Jewish American Experience, and LGBTQ Experience research guides.

For a list of newspapers on microfilm at the State Historical Society of Missouri, visit the newspaper catalog.

County	City	Title	Also Available On	Date Range
Clinton	Lathrop	The Golden Era	Microfilm	1884
Cooper	Boonville	Boonville Message	Microfilm	1916-1918
Gasconade	Hermann	Licht-Freund	Microfilm	1843-1845
Greene	Springfield	Springfield Labor Record	Microfilm	1979-1985
Greene	Springfield	Springfield Laborer	Microfilm	1916-1917
Greene	Springfield	Union Labor Record	Microfilm	1937-1979
Jackson	Kansas City	Kansas City Labor	Microfilm	1895
Jackson	Kansas City	Kansas City Labor News	Microfilm	1924-1938
Jackson	Kansas City	Labor Herald	Microfilm	1904-1940
Jackson	Kansas City	Labor Journal	Microfilm	1942-1962
Jasper	Joplin	Labor Record	Microfilm	1900-1901
Jasper	Joplin	Missouri Trades Unionist	Microfilm	1908-1921
Marion	Hannibal	Hannibal Labor Press	Microfilm	1915-1972
Pettis	Sedalia	The Advocate	Microfilm	1891
Pettis	Sedalia	Missouri Dry	Microfilm	1916
Pettis	Sedalia	Missouri New Age	Microfilm	1882-1883
Scotland	Memphis	Farmer's Union	Microfilm	1891-1895
St. Louis	St. Louis	Cimeter	Microfilm	1884-1885
St. Louis	St. Louis	Herald of Religious Liberty	Microfilm	1845-1846
St. Louis	St. Louis	Illinois Labor Tribune	Microfilm	1963-1966
St. Louis	St. Louis	Indiana Labor Tribune	Microfilm	1955-1970
St. Louis	St. Louis	Labor	Microfilm	1893-1899
St. Louis	St. Louis	Labor Campaign	Microfilm	1894
St. Louis	St. Louis	Labor Compendium	Microfilm	1901-1905, 1907-1911
St. Louis	St. Louis	St. Louis/Southern Illinois Labor Tribune	Microfilm	2012-2014
St. Louis	St. Louis	Labor's Call	Microfilm	1977-1979
St. Louis	St. Louis	Midwest Labor World	Microfilm	1943-1963
St. Louis	St. Louis	Milwaukee Labor	Microfilm	1894
St. Louis	St. Louis	Missouri Labor	Microfilm	1896-1906
St. Louis	St. Louis	Southern Illinois Labor Tribune	Microfilm	1954-1963, 1966-1970
St. Louis	St. Louis	St. Louis Commercial News and Labor Gazette	Microfilm	1911
St. Louis	St. Louis	St. Louis Labor	Microfilm	1895-1896, 1903-1930
St. Louis	St. Louis	St. Louis Labor Tribune	Microfilm	1937-1985
St. Louis	St. Louis	St. Louis Union	Microfilm	1883
St. Louis	St. Louis	St. Louis Observer	Microfilm	1835-1836
St. Louis	St. Louis	St. Louis Union Labor Advocate	Microfilm	1934-1958
St. Louis	Troy	Troy Labor	Microfilm	1894

Vertical Files

The vertical files contain magazine and newspaper clippings, handwritten information donated by patrons, bibliographies, programs, brochures, flyers, and other materials that, by reason of their physical formats, cannot be placed on the shelves with books. Ask staff members about vertical files on education and the temperance movement.

Featured Events

May 25 May 26

For the People Pow Wow

You're invited to the 14th annual For the People Pow Wow on Memorial Day weekend, May 25 and 26, in Jefferson City. Enjoy food, dance, art, crafts and singing at this FREE event open to the public. Native American dancing begins at noon on Saturday, May 25 through the evening. On Sunday, the dancing will happen noon to 5 p.m. Meet dancers from Oklahoma and Missouri, including Master of Ceremonies William Branson of Columbia.