It's fair to say that no other immigrant group has had a greater influence on Missouri as the Germans. They swarmed into St. Louis and then followed the Missouri River westward in the early 1800s, finding in our rolling hills and broad valleys a beautiful country that reminded them of their beloved homeland in the Old World. This book is your personal tour guide into that unique heritage. It includes rare archival materials as well as places you can visit today to help you explore that history or let you sample their culture with all your senses. We hope this book encourages greater appreciation of Missouri Germans' influence upon our state's development, including their bedrock antislavery principles and support of the Union, their industrious work ethic and craftsmanship that shaped so much of our built environment, and a talent for fun that germinated so many breweries, wineries, bandstands, and other treasured aspects of our culture. We can practically guarantee your amazement at some the legacies these German immigrants left that still surround us. Immigration is one of the most debated political topics in our country today; it's hard to see clearly beyond the present situation. By looking back at the surprisingly parallel situation of Missouri's German immigrants beginning almost 200 years ago, perhaps we can better envision reaching our target of a diverse yet unified Missouri life in the furture.

German immigrants came to America for two main reasons: to seek opportunities in the New World, and to avoid political and economic problems in Europe. In German Settlement in Missouri, Robyn Burnett and Ken Luebbering demonstrate the crucial role that the German immigrants and their descendants played in the settlement and development of Missouri's architectural, political, religious, economic, and social landscape. Relying heavily on unpublished memoirs, letters, diaries, and official records, the authors provide important new narratives and firsthand commentary from the immigrants themselves. Between 1800 and 1919, more than 7 million people came to the United States from German-speaking lands. The German immigrants established towns as they moved up the Missouri River into the frontier, resuming their traditional ways as they settled. As a result, the culture of the frontier changed dramatically. The Germans farmed differently from their American neighbors. They started vineyards and wineries, published German-language newspapers, and entered Missouri politics. The decades following the Civil War brought the golden age of German culture in the state. The populations of many small towns were entirely German, and traditions from the homeland thrived. German-language schools, publications, and church services were common. As the German businesses in St. Louis and other towns flourished, the immigrants and their descendants prospered. The loyalty of the Missouri Germans was tested in World War I, and the anti-immigrant sentiment during the war and the period of prohibition after it dealt serious blows to their culture. However, German traditions had already found their way into mainstream American life. Informative and clearly written, German Settlement in Missouri will be of interest to all readers, especially those interested in ethnic history.

Originally written in 1980 by the late Lorenzo J. Greene, Gary R. Kremer, and Antonio F. Holland, Missouri's Black Heritage remains the only book-length account of the rich and inspiring history of the state's African-American population. It has now been revised and updated by Kremer and Holland, incorporating the latest scholarship into its pages. This edition describes in detail the struggles faced by many courageous African-Americans in their efforts to achieve full civil and political rights against the greatest of odds. Documenting the African-American experience from the horrors of slavery through present-day victories, the book touches on the lives of people such as John Berry Meachum, a St. Louis slave who purchased his own freedom and then helped countless other slaves gain emancipation; Hiram Young, a Jackson County free black whose manufacturing of wagons for Santa Fe Trail travelers made him a legendary figure; James Milton Turner; who, after rising from slavery to become one of the best-educated blacks in Missouri, worked with the Freedmen's Bureau and the State Department of Education to establish schools for blacks all over the state after the Civil War; and Annie Turnbo Malone, a St. Louis entrepreneur whose business skills made her one of the state's wealthiest African-Americans in the early twentieth century. A personal reminiscence by the late Lorenzo J. Greene, a distinguished African-American historian whom many regard as one of the fathers of black history, offers a unique view of Missouri's racial history and heritage. Because Missouri's Black Heritage, Revised Edition places Missouri's experience in the larger context of the national experience, this book will bewelcomed by all students and teachers of American history or black studies, as well as by the general reader. It will also promote pride and a greater understanding among African-Americans about their past and provide an increased appreciation of the contributions and hardships of blacks.

The author's intent was to promote and describe the midwest, specifically Missouri. His audience was the people of his native Germany.

Play Me Something Quick and Devilish explores the heritage of traditional fiddle music in Missouri. Howard Wight Marshall considers the place of homemade music in people’s lives across social and ethnic communities from the late 1700s to the World War I years and into the early 1920s. This exceptionally important and complex period provided the foundations in history and settlement for the evolution of today’s old-time fiddling. Beginning with the French villages on the Mississippi River, Marshall leads us chronologically through the settlement of the state and how these communities established our cultural heritage. Other core populations include the “Old Stock Americans” (primarily Scotch-Irish from Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Virginia), African Americans, German-speaking immigrants, people with American Indian ancestry (focusing on Cherokee families dating from the Trail of Tears in the 1830s), and Irish railroad workers in the post–Civil War period. These are the primary communities whose fiddle and dance traditions came together on the Missouri frontier to cultivate the bounty of old-time fiddling enjoyed today. Marshall also investigates themes in the continuing evolution of fiddle traditions. These themes include the use of the violin in Westward migration, in the Civil War years, and in the railroad boom that changed history. Of course, musical tastes shift over time, and the rise of music literacy in the late Victorian period, as evidenced by the brass band movement and immigrant music teachers in small towns, affected fiddling. The contributions of music publishing as well as the surprising importance of ragtime and early jazz also had profound effects. Much of the old-time fiddlers’ repertory arises not from the inherited reels, jigs, and hornpipes from the British Isles, nor from the waltzes, schottisches, and polkas from the Continent, but from the prolific pens of Tin Pan Alley. Marshall also examines regional styles in Missouri fiddling and comments on the future of this time-honored, and changing, tradition. Documentary in nature, this social history draws on various academic disciplines and oral histories recorded in Marshall’s forty-some years of research and field experience. Historians, music aficionados, and lay people interested in Missouri folk heritage—as well as fiddlers, of course—will find Play Me Something Quick and Devilish an entertaining and enlightening read. With 39 tunes, the enclosed Voyager Records companion CD includes a historic sampler of Missouri fiddlers and styles from 1955 to 2012. A media kit is available here: press.umsystem.edu/pages/PlayMeSomethingQuickandDevilish.aspx

Missouri has been likened to a “cave factory” because its limestone bedrock can be slowly dissolved by groundwater to form caverns, and the state boasts more than six thousand caves in an unbelievable variety of sizes, lengths, and shapes. Dwight Weaver has been fascinated by Missouri’s caves since boyhood and now distills a lifetime of exploration and research in a book that will equally fascinate readers of all ages. Missouri Caves in History and Legend records a cultural heritage stretching from the end of the ice age to the twenty-first century. In a grand tour of the state’s darkest places, Weaver takes readers deep underground to shed light on the historical significance of caves, correct misinformation about them, and describe the ways in which people have used and abused these resources. Weaver tells how these underground places have enriched our knowledge of extinct animals and early Native Americans. He explores the early uses of caves: for the mining of saltpeter, onyx, and guano; as sources of water; for cold storage; and as livestock shelters. And he tells how caves were used for burial sites and moonshine stills, as hideouts for Civil War soldiers and outlaws—revealing how Jesse James became associated with Missouri caves—and even as venues for underground dance parties in the late nineteenth century. Bringing caves into the modern era, Weaver relates the history of Missouri’s “show caves” over a hundred years—from the opening of Mark Twain Cave in 1886 to that of Onyx Mountain Caverns in 1990—and tells of the men and women who played a major role in expanding the state’s tourism industry. He also tracks the hunt for the buried treasure and uranium ore that have captivated cave explorers, documents the emergence of organized caving, and explains how caves now play a role in wildlife management by providing a sanctuary for endangered bats and other creatures. Included in the book is an overview of cave resources in twelve regions, covering all the counties that currently have recorded caves, as well as a superb selection of photos from the author’s extensive collection, depicting the history and natural features of these underground wonders. Missouri Caves in History and Legend is a riveting account that marks an important contribution to the state’s heritage and brings this world of darkness into the light of day.