Missouri Bicentennial projects allow one to peruse Missouri’s history like never before
Pics or it didn't happen...
Courtesy Beth Pike
The State Historical Society of Missouri (SHSMO) spent much of 2021 spearheading a campaign to assemble a ton of data and information on anything and everything that has shaped the Show Me State into what it has become over the last two centuries.
As part of the Missouri Bicentennial Project, the SHSMO partnered with organizations across the state to create and expand digital resources for the teachers, students, researchers, and citizen-historians looking to learn more about Missouri’s storied past.
At the base of it all is the SHSMO Digital Collection, which has been expanded and made easier to access than ever before, granting citizens access to thousands of maps, manuscripts, correspondences, media, and archives from throughout the state’s 200-year history.
One of the larger projects under this umbrella is an interactive Missouri Timeline, which traces the state’s past through archival documents and images starting from the earliest recorded historical record of the Oneota Indigenous people inhabiting the region from A.D. 1250 and continues through to the present day.
The Missouri Timeline is one resource created for the Missouri Bicentennial database. // Courtesy Beth Pike
A 19-unit video series, Finding Missouri: Our History & Heritage—complete with transcripts, suggested research topics, and all works cited—is aimed for classroom use and allows for teachers to download all videos and the curriculum directly.
Other available resources include the Missouri Encyclopedia, a list of Historic Missourians, a registry of notable Missouri Artists, a digital exhibit that explores Missouri’s Struggle for Statehood, a collection on the history of Missouri’s courts, and the Missouri Constitution Quiz.
“Many hours of staff and volunteer time have developed these resources to broaden the public’s understanding of the culture, people, institutions, places, and events that continue to shape Missouri,” SHSMO’s Beth Pike says.
The majority of these pages will continue to be updated going forward.
“While these digital resources were created or expanded to commemorate Missouri’s 200th year of statehood, these links will continue well past the bicentennial year and, hopefully, engage people of all ages to learn from our past and to think about how we want to be as Missourians in the future,” Pike says.
Additional Missouri history educational resources from Missouri Humanities Council, Missouri Secretary of State, The Supreme Court of Missouri, Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, Missouri Legislative Library, and more can be found on the Educational Resource page.
