National History Day in Missouri 2005
"Communication in History: The Key to Understanding"
Possible Missouri Topics

An examination of the advances in transportation technology will demonstrate the part it played in the ability of people to communicate with each other over increasing distances, with increasing speed. Missouri is the ideal location to study about transportation. Some have called Missouri the "Crossroads State" and "Gateway to the West" because of its place in history as a jumping off point for pioneers and other westward travel. The state touches both the largest river in the U.S. – the Mississippi – and the longest – the Missouri. Also, both "America's Golden Highway" – Route 40, which ran from Atlantic City to San Francisco – and the "Mother Road" – Route 66, which ran from Chicago to Los Angeles – passed through Missouri.

• Shoemaker, Floyd C. The Story of Transportation in Missouri. Columbia, MO: State Historical Society of Missouri, 1976.
  Articles originally published in Missouri Motor News, Nov. 1933-1935, were removed and mounted in book form. Discusses overland travel, steamboats, and railroads.

Although the Santa Fe Road had been an ancient passageway used by Native Americans, after 1821 it was used regularly by merchant-traders from Missouri who took manufactured goods to Santa Fe (Mexico) to exchange for furs and other items available there. In 1825, through a treaty with the Osage Indians, the U.S. Government obtained the right of way for a public highway and Congress authorized an official survey of the route by George C. Sibley and other appointed commissioners. The embarkation point for the Trail was usually Independence, Missouri.

Although a financial failure and lasting only from April 1860-October 1861, the Pony Express was one of the most romantic methods of communication in the mid-19th century. Covering 1,966 miles from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California, riders carried the mail on horseback through Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and Nevada in about 10 days – an unheard-of feat at the time. The California Gold Rush of the late 1840s had caused a great influx of American settlers during the 1850s and it was important to keep the lines of communication open between California and the rest of the United States. However, the completion of the transcontinental telegraph lines in 1861, allowing communication across country in minutes, instead of days, cemented the downfall of the Pony Express.

Rivers were the first highways on the North American continent and two of the largest, the Mississippi and the Missouri, met in Missouri. Until the early 1800s, canoes, rafts, and other human-propelled boats moved people and cargo up and down the rivers. It wasn't until the advent of the steamboat that river travel became more feasible for the commercial transportation of large cargoes of cotton, sugar, and other agricultural – as well as industrial – supplies. However, it was with the increased speed and comfort of steamboat transportation that people began to consider traveling more often as passengers, thus increasing communication with both business and personal acquaintances.

• Heckman, William L., Jr., (1869-1957) Scrapbooks, 1912-1946, (WHMC-C 1404).
  Scrapbooks compiled by a steamboat pilot from Hermann, MO. Included in the volumes are clippings about steamboats, pilots, life on the river, family members, and local history; and photographs of steamboats.
• Thorp, James T. (1888-1956), Scrapbooks, 1840-1955, (WHMC-C 1429).
  Materials collected and organized by Thorp as histories of the Missouri River, steamboats, and Miami, MO. Includes photographs, newspaper clippings, bills, receipts, excerpts from the MIAMI WEEKLY NEWS, and miscellaneous items.
• Trail, E.B. (1884-1965), Collection, 1858-1965, (WHMC-C 2071).
  Correspondence, bills of lading, notes, photographs, clippings, periodicals, scrapbooks, account books, freight books, cabin registers, and portage books of E.B. Trail, collector of the history and memorabilia of steam boating on the Missouri River and its tributaries.
• Ferris, Ruth. St. Louis and the Mighty Mississippi in the Steamboat Age, edited with an introduction by David E. Cassens with a foreword by John Neal Hoover. St. Louis, MO: St. Louis Mercantile Library, 1993.
• Way, Frederick, Jr. Way's Packet Directory, 1848-1994. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1994.
  Photographs and brief descriptions of passenger steamboats of the Mississippi River system (Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio Rivers).

While steamboats improved river travel and made Missouri a natural center of commerce and communication, overland travel was still long and tedious, with people either walking on their own power or riding in vehicles pulled by horses. The advent of steam-powered engines that traveled on rails would alter Missouri's identity as the crossroads of America. Once the rails were laid, people were no longer obliged to follow natural constraints in traveling across the country. Weather, water and topography had become irrelevant. The railroads consolidated America as steamboat, stagecoach and prairie schooner could never have done. (Nagel, Missouri: A History)

Automobiles symbolized unprecedented freedom and mobility for those who could afford to own them, and the interstate highway system would facilitate that mobility for the rapidly growing numbers of drivers in America. Christened in 1926 and running through Missouri on its way from Chicago to Los Angeles, Route 66 was part of that system, linking the isolated, rural West to the more densely populated, urban Midwest and Northeast. Chicago had long served as a transportation point for goods to the West. The creation of Route 66 ensured the continuation of this vital socioeconomic link and, along with the other interstate highways; it enabled the most comprehensive movement of people in the history of the United States.

From the earliest times of contact between Europeans and Native Americans, Missourians have communicated – with their enemies, their allies, or those they left behind – during times of war or conflict. Whether it was agents working out treaties or trade agreements with the Indians in the early 19th century, Civil War officers issuing orders to their soldiers, government agencies distributing propaganda on the homefront during one of the World Wars, or military personnel writing home to their families in any war, communication could, and sometimes did, alter the course of history.

Europeans who came to North America found that the land they "discovered" was already inhabited. Communication was needed between the natives and newcomers, but conflicting cultures and lack of common language created many misunderstandings. A study of the communication successes and failures between the two could provide insight into present-day attitudes of and toward Native Americans.

During World War II, probably more than any other war in which America participated, those left behind were expected to contribute to the war effort. Through posters, radio broadcasts, motion pictures, songs, and various other propaganda methods, the government and private industry communicated the need for civilian aid for the military efforts.

• Missouri State Council of Defense Papers, 1940-1945, (WHMC-C 11).
  Includes posters and radio broadcast materials related to victory gardens, salvage drives, and other homefront efforts.
• Cole, William C., Papers, 1942-1947, (WHMC-C 13, f. 312-317).
  Correspondence of a U.S. Congressman from Missouri relating to wartime limitations on communications industries – radio, telephone and print.
• Horten, Gerd. Radio Goes to War: The Cultural Politics of Propaganda During World War II. Berkeley: University of California Press, c. 2002.
  "Examining radio news programs, government propaganda shows, advertising, soap operas, and comedy programs, Horten situates radio wartime propaganda in the key shift from a Depression-era resentment of big business to the consumer and corporate culture of the postwar period." (book jacket)

During all wars, soldiers communicate their experiences in several ways. Some write home about their attitudes and feelings, while others write about their activities in a personal diary or journal, and still others don't express their thoughts and emotions until much later in memoirs or oral history interviews.

Painters and photographers have used art to communicate ideas for centuries. Scholars have long considered art as a key to understanding the culture and values of civilizations. Several Missouri artists have reputations of international renown.

Benton was born in Neosho into a prominent Missouri political family. By the 1930s, Benton had become one of the most important muralists in America. Many of his murals adorn the walls of famous Missouri buildings including the Missouri Capitol Building in Jefferson City. Some of his paintings may be viewed in the gallery of the State Historical Society of Missouri in Columbia.

Bingham was raised in central Missouri. Although he found the most enduring subjects of his art in the trappers and boatmen who populated Missouri's great rivers, his most famous painting [Order Number 11] depicted the graphic portrayal of General Ewing imposing his dreaded loyalty order on Missouri's border residents during the Civil War.

Walt Disney was a film and animation pioneer and innovator whose achievements sparked the imagination of people throughout the world. Born in Chicago, in 1906 Disney moved to a farm outside of Marceline, Missouri, then in 1910, to Kansas City. After World War I, Disney returned to Kansas City and opened his first animation studio. Winner of a record 32 Academy Awards in his lifetime, Disney amassed a remarkable body of work.

• Bogart, Michele H. "Animation as Artwork," Prospects 2000 volume 25, pages 425-484.
  Traces the development and evolution of animation.
• Finch, Christopher. Art of Walt Disney: From Mickey Mouse to the Magic Kingdoms. New York: Abrams, 1999.
  Illustrated examination of Disney art.
• Fogelsong, Richard. Married to the Mouse: Walt Disney World and Orlando. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001.
  Exploring the relationship and impact of Disneyworld upon Orlando, FL.
• Wasko, Janet. Understanding Disney: The Manufacture of Fantasy. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Blackwell, 2001.
  Examination of the Disney empire by a leading entertainment industry scholar.
• Watts, Steven. Walt Disney and the American Way of Life. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997.
  Disney biography.

Authors and playwrights use language and words to communicate ideas the way artists use their camera or paintbrush. The character of the runaway slave Jim in Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn is considered to be the first instance in American literature in which a black man is portrayed as a human being. Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe galvanized the abolitionist movement and indirectly led to the American Civil War.

Chopin was born Katherine O' Flaherty to a prominent family in St. Louis. In 1870 she married Oscar Chopin and moved to his native New Orleans. After his death she returned to St. Louis and began to write about the Creole and Cajun people she had observed in the South. She was acclaimed for her finely crafted short stories of which she wrote more than 100. In 1899 Chopin published The Awakening, a novel condemned in its time because of its portrayal of an interracial marriage. It was rediscovered in the 1950s, when critics marveled at its modern sensibility and writing style. Chopin led the way for future American female authors.

• "A St. Louis Woman Who Has Won Fame in Literature." St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 26 November 1899, (4).
  This article written after the publication of Chopin's The Awakening, details Chopin's life and work. It includes photographs as well as a personal account of her life by Chopin.
• William C. Breckenridge Papers, 1752-1927, (WHMC-C 1036).
  Volume 15 contains a newspaper clipping of Chopin's death notice, which includes biographical data, description of Chopin's literary work and a picture.
• Seyersted, Per. Kate Chopin: A Critical Biography. Baton Rouge: LA State University Press, 1980.

Also known as Mark Twain, Clemens was born in Florida, MO, and later moved with his family to Hannibal. His strong tie to the Mississippi River is often expressed in his writings. His body of work, including The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, are some of the most beloved American literary works.

Hughes was one of the most important writers and thinkers of the Harlem Renaissance, the African American artistic movement in the 1920s that celebrated black life and culture. Born into an abolitionist family in Joplin, Missouri in 1902, Hughes's creative genius was influenced by his life in New York City's Harlem, a primarily African American neighborhood. His literary works helped shape American literature and politics by promoting equality, condemning racism and injustice, and celebrating African American culture, humor, and spirituality.

Music is one of the keys to understanding cultures and/or civilizations. Patriotic music is often used to rally support, especially during moments of national crisis or wartime. Typically American forms of music, such as blues, jazz, ragtime, minstrels, folk, and gospel have also been used to communicate ideas. For example: slaves in Missouri sang as they worked, using music as communication between each other. Spirituals evolved from this practice. Missouri has produced numerous musicians from blues [Henry Townsend], jazz [Claude Williams] and ragtime [Scott Joplin, James Scott, and Blind Boone] to gospel[Willa Mae Ford Smith] and folk music [Max Hunter, Lyman Enloe, Art Galbraith].

• St. Louis Town, 1929-1933. New York: Yazoo Records, circa 1960.
  Blues performed by various artists including Henry Townsend.
• Adams, Robert. Black Music: Blues, Jazz and Gospel. Columbia: University of Missouri- Columbia, 1986.
  Essay published on African American music.
• Cunningham, Lyn Driggs. Sweet, Hot and Blue: St. Louis' Musical Heritage. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1989.
  Interviews with St. Louis area blues musicians.
• Townsend, Henry. A Blues Life: Henry Townsend as told to Bill Greensmith. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999.
  Autobiography of the "father of the blues guitar."

Missouri has a recognizable and often studied style of folk music.

• Sanford Brunson Campbell Letters, (WHMC-C 3204).
  Letters to Floyd Shoemaker in regards to Scott Joplin. Includes brochures, other printed material pertaining to ragtime, jazz, and Joplin.
• Geiger, Louis G. "The Jazz Age in Cooper County, Missouri in the 1920s", Boonville, Missouri: Cooper County Historical Society, 1993. Imprint held by State Historical Society of Missouri.
• Meyer, Raymond F. Backwoods Jazz in the Twenties. Ed. Frank Nickell. Cape Girardeau, Missouri: Center for Regional History and Cultural Heritage, Southeast Missouri State University, 1989.
  Biography of Midwestern jazz musicians.
• Russell, Ross. Jazz Style in Kansas City and the Southwest. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971.
  Examination of the Charlie Menees Collection.

Journalism records events as they happen and then reports back to the community. Before the advent of technology, other than word-of-mouth, newspapers were the only means society had to communicate events of interest and were the key to understanding what was going on in that community and within the society as a whole. This role took on even greater importance during the early settlement period of Missouri history. On July 12, 1808, the first North American newspaper published west of the Mississippi River began operations as the Missouri Gazette (later known as the Missouri Republican). Missouri also lays claim as the home of the first school of journalism.

The oldest continuous black business in St. Louis was founded by brothers Joseph and William Mitchell in 1912 as a weekly tabloid.

The Gazette began operations on July 12, 1808, as the first North American newspaper published west of the Mississippi River. The Missouri Gazette was later known as the Missouri Republican.

Collection documents the roles women have played and are playing within the media fields, both as media representatives and as objects of coverage; examines how those roles have changed over time; and, how attitudes of and towards women have changed.

Pulitzer emigrated to the United Sates from Hungary in 1864 and served in the Union Army during the Civil War. He moved to St. Louis in 1868 to work as a reporter for the German-language newspaper, Westliche Post. He bought the bankrupt St. Louis Dispatch in 1878 and merged it with the Evening Post to form the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. His greatest legacy is his annual award for excellence in journalism.

Internationally known and respected newspaper founded in St. Louis by Joseph Pulitzer.

• Mueller, James Eugene. The St. Louis Newspaper War of 1989-1990. Thesis (M.A.)—University of Missouri-Columbia, 1992
• Ross, Charles G. Story of the St. Louis Post Dispatch. 7th edition, revised and supplemented by Sam B. Armstrong. St Louis: Pulitzer Publishing Company, 1962. The story of the newspaper.
• St. Louis Post Dispatch. St. Louis: Pulitzer Publishing Company, 1953. Newspaper talk about a newspaper as appraised by the people and the press on its 75th anniversary.

Convinced that the journalism profession required formal education and standards, Walter Williams established the world's first school devoted to the profession in 1908. Williams served as the first dean.

• Williams, Sara Lockwood (1891-1961), Papers, (WHMC-C 2533).
  Collection includes the papers of Sara Lockwood Williams and Walter Williams, material on their journalistic careers, information on the founding of the University of Missouri School of Journalism.
• Williams, Walter and Sara Lockwood Collection, (WHMC-C 2540).
  News items by and about Walter and Sara L. Williams; speeches and course notes by the former; School of Journalism faculty meeting minutes, 1911-1924; correspondence about journalism scholarships and prizes; and clippings, pamphlets, and correspondence about journalism here and abroad.
• Clayton, Charles C. "Walter Williams: Weekly Newspaper Editor," Missouri Historical Review 1964 58 (4), pages 409-421.
• Taft, William H, "Establishing the School of Journalism," Missouri Historical Review 1989 84 (1), pages 63-83.

Editorial cartoonists communicate their views on political, cultural and social events. With a single cartoon or strip they give credence to the axiom that a picture is worth a thousand words.

From Martin Luther's theses against the Catholic Church and the Magna Charta to the speeches of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, to the writings of Karl Marx and Thomas Paine, communication of political ideas has transformed world history. Mankind has always found a way to express dissent against authority whether by handwritten manuscript, the printing press, or the Internet.

Conflict between city officials and Local 61 of the Industrial Workers of the World arose over the right to recruit on street corners in order to promote the goals of the union. A series of clashes with police and authorities, who objected to the "radical" language used by the workers, lasted throughout the spring and summer of 1911 and led to the arrest and jailing of the workers.

• McInnis, Tom N. "Kansas City Free Speech Fights of 1911." Missouri Historical Review 1990 84 (3): 253-269. Based on stories from the Kansas City press and IWW documents.
• Dubofsky, Melvyn. We Shall Be All: A History of the Industrial Workers of the World, ed. Joseph A. McCartin. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000. There is a chapter on "The Fight for Free Speech, 1909-1912."
• Foner, Philip S. History of the Labor Movement in the United States, Volume IV: The Industrial Workers of the World, 1905-1917. New York: International Publishers, 1965.

Established by the University of Missouri School of Journalism in 1958, it is the world's largest collection of materials documenting the freedom of information movement. The reference and research library assists the general public with access to federal documents and information.

• Cross, Harold L. "The People's Right to Know" second supplement. Columbia: University of Missouri Freedom of Information Center, 1959
• "A Freedom of Information Retrospective: In Observance of the Twentieth Year of the Freedom of Information Center, University of Missouri-Columbia, 1978", Columbia: University of Missouri-Columbia, School of Journalism, 1978.
• Freedom of Information Center of University of Missouri School of Journalism, University of Missouri Archives.
  Records consist of general information about various groups and organizations of interest to journalists and available to the public as well. Essentially, these records comprise a reference center for journalists and those with interests in journalism.
• Perianayakam, Priya. Freedom of Information Center, 1958-1986. Thesis (M.A.)—University of Missouri-Columbia, 1986.

St. Louis-based O'Hare was jailed in 1917 for outspoken opposition to the World War I conscription and spent three years in the Missouri State Penitentiary. After her sentence was commuted by President Woodrow Wilson in 1920, she spent the remainder of her life advocating for prisoner's rights.

• O'Hare, Kate Richards, Letters, (WHMC-C 3118).
  Letters to her family while incarcerated in the Missouri State Penitentiary.
  [Note: Uncertainty exists as to the holder of the literary copyrights to this correspondence.]
• Miller, Sally M. "Through Dungeons Dark: The Story of Kate Richards O'Hare." Gateway Heritage 1993 13(4): 58-67.
• O'Hare, Kate Richards. In Prison. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1976.
  A reprint of O'Hare's 1923 work on life inside prison.
• O'Hare, Kate Richards. Kate Richards O'Hare: Selected Writings and Speeches, edited by Philip S. Foner and Sally Miller. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1982.
• Steppenoff, Bonnie. "Mother and Teacher as Missouri State Penitentiary Inmates: Goldman and O'Hare, 1917-1920." Missouri Historical Review 1991 85 (4): 402-421

Blind and deaf persons often must find alternative methods of communicating with each other and with non-handicapped people. Deaf people can be extremely isolated because of their inability to understand or to make themselves understood by the hearing world. Although American Sign Language (ASL) can be effective to use when all parties "speak" the language, it can be inconvenient and/or expensive to hire interpreters; and communicating through lip reading or writing on a pad can prove frustrating. While the blind can be more easily understood by the sighted world, they also must resort to alternative methods to avail themselves of the stores of knowledge that have been communicated throughout history by the written word.

Becoming deaf after a childhood illness, Laura Catherine Redden attended the Missouri School for the Deaf in Fulton, Missouri. She returned to St. Louis in 1858 to publish as a journalist, author and poet under the name Howard Glyndon. During the Civil War, Redden was sent to Washington, D.C., as a correspondent for the St. Louis Republican, where she befriended many political and military figures, such as General U.S. Grant. She later studied under Alexander Graham Bell, traveled extensively in Europe, California and Alaska, continued to publish her poetry. This 19th century deaf woman also married, divorced and raised a daughter on her own.

Missouri School for the Blind in St. Louis, founded in 1851, was the first school in the western hemisphere to teach the reading and writing of Braille. A code of raised dots which enables blind persons to read and write, Braille is read with the fingers moving across on top of the dots. Although the use of tape recorders and computers with synthetic speech have reduced the use of Braille, many experts feel that listening to a document is not the same as reading it – that "listening is not literacy." In addition, those who are both deaf and blind, like Helen Keller, cannot use the electronic audio equipment.

• Green, A.P. (1875-1956), Papers, 1926-1958, (WHMC-C 2960).
  Business and personal papers of a Mexico, MO, businessman included correspondence as a member of Board of Visitors of the University of Missouri, which includes information on the post-WWII educational needs of the Schools for the Blind and the Deaf.
• Hampshire, Barry. Working with Braille: A Study of Braille As a Medium of Communication. Paris: Unesco Press, 1981.
• Braille Revival League of California. Braille: the Key to Literacy and Independence. Washington, D.C.: National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, Library of Congress, 1991.

The marketing of products, ideas, or people – whether for financial gain or for ideological purposes – makes use of the communication skills of language, visual arts, creative sounds or music, and many other methods to get the point across. Posters, broadsides, newspaper ads, radio or television broadcasts, logos, jingles, letterhead art -- these are all methods of communicating the value or worth of one's ideas or products to others. A topic focusing on how advertising was used to communicate the message of a Missouri politician, business, or social agency would provide an interesting project.

Diaries record facets of everyday life, both historically significant and mundane, and are key to historians' understanding of past events. Sgt. Joseph Plum Martin's diary of his military service during the Revolutionary War is the only one of its kind to survive. Anne Frank's diary opens a window onto the horror of the Holocaust.

Language is the foundation of communication. One of the biggest hurdles facing immigrants is learning to speak a new language and is key to success in their new homeland. Some immigrants choose to assimilate quickly and some do not. Those who do not assimilate face additional difficulties.