Paris, Tightwad, Peculiar, Neosho, Gasconade, Hannibal, Diamond, Quarantine, Zif, and Zig. These are just a few of the names Margot Ford McMillen covers in her lively book on the history of place names in Missouri. The origins behind the names range from humorous to descriptive: •Tightwad, Missouri, is said to have been named after a store owner who cheated a mailman out of his rightful watermelon to make an extra fifty cents. •Plad, Missouri, was supposed to be named "Glad," but the post office printed the name wrong, and it was too much trouble to get it changed. •Some place names describe a location, such as Big Spring or Flat River. •Other names show the influence of immigrants to the state, like Hermann, which is a German name, or the Maries River, which was derived from the French. •Many places are named for people or wildlife found nearby, while others are backed up by legend or simply picked out of thin air.

Paris, Tightwad, and Peculiar: Missouri Place Names (Missouri Heritage Readers) (Volume 1)

McMillen, Margot Ford

Travel

University of Missouri

While there are many accessible biographies of important Missouri men, there are few such biographies of Missouri women, which might suggest that they did not count in history. This book, written by a mother-and-daughter team, helps to correct that misconception by tracing the lives of four women who played important roles in their eras. These women were exceptional because they had the courage to make the best of their abilities, forging trails and breaking the barriers that separated women’s spheres from those of men: · A Native American woman the French newspapers called “Ignon Ouaconisen,” and the people of Paris called the “Missouri princess,” lived from about 1700 to after 1751. She traveled with adventurer Etienne de Bourgmont and bore his child. Although much of her life remains a mystery, her story gives us insights into the lives of Missouri Indian women in the days of the fur trade. · Pioneer Olive Boone (1783–1858) came to the Louisiana Territory as the teenage bride of Nathan Boone, guiding a skiff and their horses across the Missouri River to join the Daniel Boone family near St. Charles. For much of her married life, she stayed alone with her fourteen children while her husband traveled on lengthy hunting expeditions, supervised the Boone saltworks in present-day Howard County, and spent years in the military. · Martha Jane Chisley, born a slave in 1833, was brought to northeast Missouri as a young woman. During the Civil War, Martha Jane escaped with her children to Illinois. She overcame many obstacles so that her son Augustine was able to enter school and get an education. Augustine studied in Rome and became the first nationally known African American priest. · Nell Donnelly of Kansas City was a pioneering businesswoman who founded a dress company that became the world’s largest, brightening the wardrobe of the “housewife” while also creating fair working conditions for her employees. Born into an ordinary middle-class family in 1889, she achieved a success and high profile that brought its own problems. Using Missouri and Illinois archives, Margot Ford McMillen and Heather Roberson have compiled well-known and obscure materials to describe the lives of both women and men, showing how roles changed as Missouri and America matured. Bringing together family insights and the rare writings of observers who almost never mention women in their journals, Called to Courage will be welcomed by anyone interested in women’s history or Missouri history.

Called to Courage: Four Women in Missouri History (Missouri Heritage Readers) (Volume 1)

Biographies & Memoirs

Roberson, Heather

Community & Culture

As a companion volume to their earlier book, Called to Courage: Four Women in Missouri History, Margot Ford McMillen and Heather Roberson’s Into the Spotlight provides the biographies of four more remarkable Missouri women. Although these women came from radically different circumstances, they all shared a common sense of purpose, determination, and courage, and each used her own unique position to empower herself and others Sacred Sun, also called Mohongo, was a Native American of the Osage tribe in Missouri. In 1827, her people lost their land, their sacred places, and many of their traditions. Seeking answers to the dilemma faced by her people, and possibly aid from the French, she journeyed to Europe with a group of prominent Osage and a French entrepreneur. The harrowing events she experienced there would shape the woman she became when she returned to the Osage tribe, which had been forced to move to Oklahoma and was still struggling to survive. Emily Newell Blair was born into a successful southwest Missouri family. Although she was born at a time when the contributions of women in the workforce were quite limited, she was encouraged by her family to get an education and expand her skills in writing and speaking. When women did begin to pursue education and careers, Blair was at the forefront, working tirelessly to secure voting rights for women. Eventually, she was elected to the Democratic National Committee and later poured her energy into organizing Democratic women’s clubs. Josephine Baker grew up in segregated turn-of-the-century St. Louis society, which determined human worth by the color of one’s skin. Her mixed ethnic background left Baker feeling isolated both from her own black family and from white society. Driven to develop her own unique style, she became a star of song and stage, toured Europe, served as a spy, and was a fervent civil rights and antiracism activist. Elizabeth Virginia Wallace, known to her family as “Bess,” grew up in one of Missouri’s most prominent families. She married a neighborhood boy—considered unacceptable by her mother—who would go on to become President Harry Truman. Bess Truman, called “the boss” by her husband, worked side by side with him, editing his speeches and providing advice and guidance through innumerable crises during and after World War II. Into the Spotlight provides valuable new insights into Missouri and American history, as well as women’s history, and will be a welcome addition to the Missouri Heritage Readers Series.

Into the Spotlight: Four Missouri Women (Missouri Heritage Readers) (Volume 1)

Fulton State Hospital was not only Missouri’s first state mental asylum but also the first such institution west of the Mississippi. In tracing its founding and evolution over a century and a half, this book sheds light on both a neglected aspect of the state’s history and the development of mental health care in America. It acknowledges the noble aspirations of Fulton State Hospital—as well as its failures, throughout much of its existence, to transform those aspirations into realities. This institutional history of the hospital traces the debates surrounding its creation (as the State Lunatic Asylum) in a time when mental illness was barely understood. Although the Fulton hospital was initially conceived as a treatment facility, it quickly transformed into a primarily custodial institution. It existed as a self-sufficient establishment until the mid-twentieth century, dependent on patient labor and even producing its own food. But for the most socially disadvantaged and for the severely delusional, life at Fulton was anything but therapeutic. The book describes not only the lofty goals of professionals dedicated to treating the mentally ill but also an institution once clouded by overcrowding, financial mismanagement, political cronyism, and wrongful confinement. It considers segregation within the hospital, where the first black doctor was hired in 1960 and where racism nevertheless continued to flourish, and it describes how, even after the 1921 Eleemosynary Act, the patronage system continued to plague Fulton for two more decades. The authors reveal changing attitudes toward new treatments in the mid-twentieth century as psychotherapy and drugs became common, and decisions at Fulton regarding patient care are described within the context of progress in Europe and the eastern United States. The book addresses the complexities facing the physician-superintendents who supervised both medical therapies and administrative matters, depicting ongoing tension between hospital finances and state support and showing the difficulties state institutions faced in a “low tax/low public service” environment. As Fulton State Hospital enters the twenty-first century, clients have become active in the development of institutional policies—a far cry from the warehousing of patients a hundred years ago. In tracing these seismic shifts in mental health care, this book offers an eye-opening exploration of how one state has sought to care for its citizens.

Evolution of a Missouri Asylum: Fulton State Hospital, 1851-2006

History

Lael, Richard L.

Brazos, Barbara

Americas

Evolution of a Missouri Asylum: Fulton State Hospital, 1851-2006 (Volume 1)

While there are many accessible biographies of important Missouri men, there are few such biographies of Missouri women, which might suggest that they did not count in history. This book, written by a mother-and-daughter team, helps to correct that misconception by tracing the lives of four women who played important roles in their eras. These women were exceptional because they had the courage to make the best of their abilities, forging trails and breaking the barriers that separated women’s spheres from those of men:·        A Native American woman the French newspapers called “Ignon Ouaconisen,” and the people of Paris called the “Missouri princess,” lived from about 1700 to after 1751. She traveled with adventurer Etienne de Bourgmont and bore his child. Although much of her life remains a mystery, her story gives us insights into the lives of Missouri Indian women in the days of the fur trade.·        Pioneer Olive Boone (1783–1858) came to the Louisiana Territory as the teenage bride of Nathan Boone, guiding a skiff and their horses across the Missouri River to join the Daniel Boone family near St. Charles. For much of her married life, she stayed alone with her fourteen children while her husband traveled on lengthy hunting expeditions, supervised the Boone saltworks in present-day Howard County, and spent years in the military.·        Martha Jane Chisley, born a slave in 1833, was brought to northeast Missouri as a young woman. During the Civil War, Martha Jane escaped with her children to Illinois. She overcame many obstacles so that her son Augustine was able to enter school and get an education. Augustine studied in Rome and became the first nationally known African American priest.·        Nell Donnelly of Kansas City was a pioneering businesswoman who founded a dress company that became the world’s largest, brightening the wardrobe of the “housewife” while also creating fair working conditions for her employees. Born into an ordinary middle-class family in 1889, she achieved a success and high profile that brought its own problems.            Using Missouri and Illinois archives, Margot Ford McMillen and Heather Roberson have compiled well-known and obscure materials to describe the lives of both women and men, showing how roles changed as Missouri and America matured. Bringing together family insights and the rare writings of observers who almost never mention women in their journals, Called to Courage will be welcomed by anyone interested in women’s history or Missouri history.

Called to Courage: Four Women in Missouri History (MISSOURI HERITAGE READERS)

From Abo to Zwanzig! A dictionary-style book of Missouri place name origins. Includes history for each town, pronunciations, population, county, post office dates and more.

A to Z Missouri, The Dictionary of Missouri Place Names (Show Me Missouri)

United States

Pebble Pub

A to Z Missouri is a dictionary of Missouri place names and includes more than 1300 names of counties, cities, towns, villages, creeks, rivers, river bends, lakes, hills, mountains, points, parks, etc. Each entry presents truths and traditions about place names and place history and are arranged in easy to use alphabetical order. McMillen, the author of Paris, Tightwad, and Peculiar (University of Missouri Press, 1994) presents A to Z Missouri as a book of entertainment rather than a scholarship. Each brief story is fun to read and the humorous illustrations by Dennis Murphy are delightful. However the scholarship involved in collecting and verifying these Missouri place names is evident as in her many other Missouri history titles, such as The Golden Lane and Evolution of a Missouri Asylum

A to Z Missouri: The Dictionary of Missouri Place Names

CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

The Golden Lane: How Missouri Women Gained the Vote and Changed History

It was June 14, 1916, a warm, sticky Wednesday morning. The Democratic Convention would soon meet in St. Louis. Inside the Jefferson Hotel, the men ate breakfast and met with their committees. Outside the hotel, thousands of women quietly took their places along both sides of Locust Street. They stood shoulder to shoulder, each one in a dress that brushed the pavement, shading herself with a yellow parasol and wearing a yellow sash that said "Votes for Women." The all-male delegations may not have had a comfortable walk down the Golden Lane, but they were moved to add women's suffrage to the national platform. Join Margot McMillen for an accessible history of a privilege too often taken for granted.

History Press Library Editions

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