MO -- St. Louis -- Missouri History Museum:
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- Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
- MHM_081010_038.JPG: Colonel Samuel Hammond
Patriot - Soldier - Statesman
Sept 21 1757 - Sept 11 1862
Minute Man at Point Pleasant VA - 1774
in the battle of Augusta-Charleston
Cowpens and King's Mountain - 1780
Colonel of cavalry under Washington
at Yorktown - 1781
Member of Congress -- 1802
Appointed by President Thomas Jefferson
Colonel Commandant of the District
of Louisiana - Oct 1 1804
Legislative Council of Missouri - 1813
President of The First Bank in St. Louis - 1814
- MHM_081010_056.JPG: Charles A. Lindbergh
The Spirit of St. Louis
Took off from Lambert-St. Louis Field
May 19th 1927
Trans-Atlantic Flight New York to Paris
May 20th-21st 1927
Presented by
The Spirit of St. Louis Association May 20th 1954
- MHM_081010_065.JPG: 1904 World's Fair: Looking Back, Looking Forward exhibit
- MHM_081010_067.JPG: Sculpting the Land: George Kessler
George Kessler, Director of Kansas City Park, served as the chief landscape architect for the Exposition. He worked in concern with his on-site supervisors, DWC Perry, to direct teams of surveyors who produced topographical maps, coding the land with numbered wooden stakes placed at 50-foot intervals.
From these codes, Kessler directed the immediate clearance of 200 acres of selected trees and underbrush, mostly elms and sycamores, whose stumps had to be blasted out with dynamite. His staff marked hundreds more trees for transplantation and use on the Fair site and constructed extensive greenhouses and horticultural beds on the Tesson Tract to supply Kessler's landscape design.
- MHM_081010_069.JPG: Notable Engineering Feats:
The Department of Works straightened the meandering River Des Peres and built a new covered wooden channel under the main avenue of the Exposition to keep polluted water originating north of Lindell Avenue away from the World's Fair site.
Also constructed were new sewer lines under the park, which were connected to St. Louis's expanding sewer system. The city required that certain portions of the work needed to be built larger than necessary in order to become part of the city's infrastructure.
- MHM_081010_075.JPG: Ready-Mixed Grandeur:
All of the Exposition main places were finished and ornamented by a special material called "staff," a mixture of lime plaster and cement, containing glycerin and dextrose. Workers added shredded Manila hemp fiber, the main ingredient in rope, to form a pliable bond. Poured into molds to mass-produce sculptural effects, when hardened the staff material could be sawed, hammered, cut, and even whittled like wood to produce unique artistic designs for the building facades.
The firms of Smith & Eastman, along with James Alexander, produced the staff on site in two workshops located near railroad tracks paralleling Lindell Boulevard. The company Barth & Stock was responsible for making all of the molds. These surviving staff fragments recall the shape and ornamental beauty of the fairgrounds.
- MHM_081010_078.JPG: The Builders:
Amid the fury of design, planning, organization, and construction, David Francis wrote, "the World's Fair site was perhaps the busiest spot on the continent." The Louisiana Purchase Exposition Company employed an army of 10,000 workers who used cranes, tractors, horse teams survey kits, blasting equipment, and freight trains to reshape the land. The real heroes of this effort, however, were the laborers who worked in all kinds of weather to sculpt the land, law sewer pipes, reroute the River Des Peres, and construct the magnificent buildings.
The laborers transformed Forest Park from a rough wilderness into the largest World's Fair in history. In the process, they forged new and lasting trade agreements and earned respect for the diverse building trades.
- MHM_081010_085.JPG: Isaac S. Taylor, Architect
- MHM_081010_092.JPG: Director
World's Fair
1903
Louisiana Purchase
St. Louis
- MHM_081010_107.JPG: Constructing the Fair:
The Fair was a highly orchestrated event. Designers joined ranks with civic planner and an army of more than 10,000 laborers to transform 1,240 acres of Forest Park and Clayton into a grant landscape-filled with classically inspired buildings, waterways, gardens, and avenues.
The story behind the construction of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition is one of human perseverance -- a testimony to the energy, investment, and commitment of St. Louis's citizens. The Fair was a highly orchestrated event. Designers joined ranks with civic planners and more than 10,000 laborers to transform 1,240 swampy acres in Forest Park in Clayton into a grand landscape filled with classically inspired buildings, waterways, gardens, and avenues.
While the 1904 World's Fair celebrated the one-hundredth anniversary of the Louisiana Purchase, the renovated parkland told a story of American progress since 1804. As the Fair's chief architect, Isaac Taylor, proclaimed, the designers and laborers had built "the grandest and most magnificent exposition in the way of buildings, architectural effects and landscape gardening the world had ever seen."
- MHM_081010_110.JPG: The Designers:
The process of organizing, planning, constructing, and running the Louisiana Purchase Exposition changed St. Louis. The transformation of Forest Park from a wilderness of trees and thickets into a showcase of the latest thinking in urban design required the vision of three powerful men: David R. Francis, Isaac Taylor, and George Kessler.
Their leadership in the realms of politics, city planning, and landscape architecture proved to the international community that a city such as St. Louis could be an inspiring model of beauty, efficiency, and commercial possibility.
- MHM_081010_120.JPG: The Pike:
The mile-long arcade known as the Pike ran along the northern boundary of the fairgrounds from DaBaliviere to Skinker, where Lindell Boulevard is today. Considered the carnival space of the Fair, visitors could stroll along the Pike and experience 50 different amusements, each with an additional admission fee of between 10 and 50 cents. Unlike the Fair's other areas, visitors could linger on the Pike even after the fairgrounds closed each evening. While known as a street of controlled chaos, fairgoers on the Pike enjoyed a thrilling array of spectacles in relative safety.
- MHM_081010_126.JPG: On the Balcony:
Positioned above the balcony on the western end of the Jefferson Gallery hang two colorful murals that show scenes from the main area of the World's Fair grounds. On the left if Fred Green Carpenter's "View from Festival Hall to the Grand Basin," and on the right, Frederick Gray's "View Looking Towards the Cascades and Festival Hall."
Painted on canvas that has been affixed to the wall, both murals were installed in 1914 in the newly completed Jefferson Memorial Building. The first national memorial dedicated to Thomas Jefferson, the building was constructed with proceeds from the 1904 World's Fair. As the former president of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Company, David R. Francis thought it appropriate that the memory of the Fair be forever preserved in the new structure. He commissioned two local artists to decorate the balcony with images that would capture the grandeur and magnificence of the fairgrounds. Although Carpenter and Gray had originally planned four views to decorate each corner of the balcony, only two were finally put in place.
- MHM_081010_128.JPG: Germany's Message to the World:
Among all of the nations represented at the Fair, Germany set the standard in splendor. According to David R. Francis, "The German section in the Palace of Varied Industries presented what was undoubtedly and beyond any comparison the most elaborate installation of exhibits and settings that has ever been seen at an exhibition or elsewhere."
The Germans assembled a rich and diverse collection of exhibits to demonstrate their progress and aptitude as an imperial nation, showcasing both their technological advancement and their participation in African colonization.
- MHM_081010_137.JPG: Irish Chair:
The Irish Village located on the Pike, the fairgrounds' entertainment district, was developed by a local St. Louis committee of prominent Irish Americans to highlight Ireland's industries, arts, education, and history.
Dating from the late eighteenth century and set to the Fair by the Irish Historical Society, this handcrafted pine chair was one of several authentic artifacts featured in the historical re-creation of the McKinley Cottage. Originally located in County Antrim, the cottage belongs to former President McKinley's great-grandfather, who was martyred for his participation in the Irish Rebellion of 1798.
- MHM_081010_142.JPG: An Invitation to a Faraway Land:
The Louisiana Purchase Exposition featured the most extensive representation of goods from the Eastern Hemisphere ever found at an international exposition.
A closed society for more than a century, China's long-anticipated involvement in its first World's Fair gave visitors the chance to experience Chinese culture through material goods, cuisine, decorative arts, and live theater. In the Fair Japan Bazaar and the Japanese Pavilion, that country revealed its industrial capabilities and intricate fine arts on an unprecedented scale, with traditional tea ceremonies and enthusiastic merchants.
Hoping to capitalize on the American marker, most of the Chinese and Japanese goods had a Western influence. With few opportunities to visit these countries and their goods difficult to obtain, visitors saw in the Fair their best hope to experience, and perhaps purchase, a piece of the "Far East."
- MHM_081010_146.JPG: Remembering the Past:
The Fair presented an opportunity for nations to share with the world stories of their past. Material artifacts served as expressions of national memory, and visitors imagined themselves traveling not only to faraway places, but also to moments in time.
Whether transported to an Irish cottage from 1798 or to a recreation of Louis XVI's French palace, fairgoers saw both humble and luxurious artifacts. While the Fair itself commemorated the Louisiana Purchase for the United States, artifacts from Ireland, France, and a host of other nations identified important moments worthy of remembrance in their countries' history.
- MHM_081010_152.JPG: Nations on Display:
More foreign nations participated in the Louisiana Purchase Exposition than in any preceding World's Fair. Nations across the globe had delegations who designed their exhibits to stress technological and cultural advances, as well as pride in their own national history. Examples of handcrafted and manufactured goods, many ready for export, reinforced the prospect of a new global marketplace.
- MHM_081010_165.JPG: Samuel Langhorn Clemens
"Mark Twain"
Born at Florida, Missouri, November 30, 1835.
Died at Redding, Connecticut, April 21, 1910.
Author, lecturer and humorist who recreated in many of his writings, the Mississippi River life of his early years, and gave the world such unforgettable characters as Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, and Colonel Mulberry Sellers.
Erected 1957 by the Mark Twain Association.
Lee Meriweather, President, VW Michael MD, Treasurer,
Edward Hart DDS, Vice President, Cyril Clemens, Secretary
- MHM_081010_178.JPG: World War I plaque
- AAA "Gem": AAA considers this location to be a "must see" point of interest. To see pictures of other areas that AAA considers to be Gems, click here.
- Wikipedia Description: Missouri History Museum
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Missouri History Museum is located in St. Louis, Missouri in Forest Park. The museum is operated by the Missouri Historical Society and was founded in 1866.
Museum facilities:
The Jefferson Memorial Building, built in 1913 with profits from the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, is the current home of the museum.
In 2000, the Emerson Center, a significant building addition was completed, boosting attendance and exhibition capacity. The Emerson Center, featuring a ground-to-roof southern glass facade, was designed by Hellmuth, Obata & Kassabaum, and included substantially more exhibition space, as well as an auditorium, classrooms, a restaurant and gift shop. The Emerson Center was selected by the American Institute of Architects's Committee on the Environment as an example of architectural design that protects and enhances the environment. It is an example of a green museum.
Collections and Exhibits:
The museum permanent collection includes both national artifacts, as well as Missouri and St. Louis related materials, such as local colonial and native artifacts, Louisiana Purchase Exhibition artifacts, and items relating to Charles Lindbergh and his trans-Atlantic flight in the "Spirit of St. Louis". A replica of the "Spirit of St. Louis" can be found in the museum. A large amount of artifacts from the Lewis and Clark Expedition are also housed in the permanent collection, as St. Louis was the starting point for that venture.
Recent travelling exhibits and events have included items related to the Fox Theatre's restoration and renovation, the Road to Freedom tour (celebrating the Americans with Disabilities Act), and, prominently, the Lewis and Clark National Bicentennial Exhibition.
- Bigger photos? To save server space, the full-sized versions of these images have either not been loaded to the server or have been removed from the server. (Only some pages are loaded with full-sized images and those usually get removed after three months.)
I still have them though. If you want me to email them to you, please send an email to guthrie.bruce@gmail.com
and I can email them to you, or, depending on the number of images, just repost the page again will the full-sized images.
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