This guide provides access to resources documenting culture in the state of Missouri at the Library of Congress.

The Veterans History Project of the American Folklife Center collects, preserves, and makes accessible the personal accounts of American war veterans so that future generations may hear directly from veterans and better understand the realities of war. Missouri related items are highlighted.

Search America's historic newspaper pages from 1789-1963 or use the U.S. Newspaper Directory to find American newspapers published between 1690-present. Chronicling America is sponsored jointly by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress. A list of Missouri digitized newspapers is also available.

The Guide to Law Online, prepared by the Law Library of Congress Public Services Division, is an annotated guide to sources of information on government and law available online. It includes selected links to useful and reliable sites for Missouri legal information.

This site provides the names and highlighted resources from current and former state Missouri Poet Laureates.

Compiled by Reference Specialists in the Local History and Genealogy Reading Room, this site identifies key resources for pursuing family history, and state, county and municipal historical research by state.

The Library of Congress has rich documents and artifacts from every state, the U.S. territories, and the District of Columbia.

Examine the interplay between national, state, local, and personal history. Students produce a digital collection of primary sources from their family or local community based on the Digital Collections.

Students explore the local history of the community in which they live through written and spoken stories; through landmarks such as buildings, parks, restaurants, or businesses; and through traditions such as food, festivals and other events of the community or of individual families.

Students create their town’s history for coming generations and place themselves on the map in a literal as well as figurative sense, by producing portions of an updated version of an early twentieth century panoramic map from the Digital Collections.

Poet and writer Langston Hughes, famous for his elucidations of black American life in his poems, stories, autobiographies, and histories, was born in Joplin, Missouri, on February 1, 1902.

On March 7, 1850, Senator Daniel Webster delivered his famous “Seventh of March” speech urging sectional compromise on the issue of slavery; like the 1820 Missouri Compromise, the Compromise of 1850 failed to resolve the question of slavery in a meaningful way.

Brewing magnate August Anheuser Busch Jr. was born March 28, 1899, in St. Louis, Missouri. Scion of the famous brewing family, Busch served as chairman of the Anheuser-Busch Companies, Inc. from 1946-1975. During his tenure, the company that his grandfather Adolphus Busch established, emerged as the largest brewery in the world.

U.S. congressman, senator, and presidential candidate Stephen A. Douglas was born on April 23, 1813. He sponsored the highly controversial Kansas-Nebraska Act which removed from Congress the authority to exclude slavery from a territory, effectively repealing the congressional compromise achieved with the Missouri Compromise.

On August 10, 1821, Missouri entered the Union as the twenty-fourth state. Named after the Native American people who originally inhabited the land, Missouri was acquired by the U.S. as part of the Louisiana Purchase.

The infamous Jesse James was born on September 5, 1847. At seventeen, James left his native Missouri to fight as a Confederate guerilla in the Civil War. After the war, he returned to his home state and led one of history’s most notorious outlaw gangs.

On November 7, 1837, Elijah Parish Lovejoy was killed by a pro-slavery mob while defending the site of his anti-slavery newspaper The Saint Louis Observer. After graduating from college and short on funds, he walked to St. Louis, Missouri, where, over time, he became editor and part-owner of The St. Louis Times.

Progressive reformer John Peter Altgeld was born in Germany on December 30, 1847. Despite his humble origins, Altgeld was admitted to the bar in Anderson County, Missouri. There, he committed himself to politics and served as city attorney of Savannah, Missouri and county prosecutor.