Saint Louis Manuscript Collections

The Christian Women’s Benevolent Association Records contain Christian Women Benevolent Association (CWBA) Board Meeting Minutes (1899–1952); Christian Old People’s Home Ledgers and Meeting Minutes (1915–1949); Christian Hospital of St. Louis Board Meeting Minutes (1923–1959); and scrapbooks, photographs, videotapes, and ephemera relating to the CWBA’s activities from 1899 – 2011.  Most notably, the records include admittance ledgers from the Christian Orphan’s Home as well as the Mothers and Babies Home of St. Louis from 1899 to 1933. The admittance ledgers are a particularly rich source of genealogical information, as they contain applications for entry into the home. Details such as date and place of the child’s birth; vaccination records; parents’ full names, birthplace and occupation, and nationality and religion; and location of the nearest living relative are listed.

The New Life Evangelistic Center (NLEC) Records contain correspondence, meeting minutes, reports, newsletters, newspaper clippings, and photographs documenting NLEC’s mission to provide Christian hospitality to the poor through social service programs and spiritual care. The collection is divided into five series: Administration; Larry Rice; Penny Rice; Chronological Files; Publications; Jim Barnes; Photographs; and Scrapbooks. The Chronological Files series consists of materials Larry Rice and his son, Chris Rice, gathered during their research for their five-volume history of NLEC. This series contains Rice’s handwritten drafts of the book, newspaper clippings, meeting minutes, and photographs, arranged chronologically by year. Other series of interest include the publications series, which consists of issues of the ZOA Free Paper, which NLEC published from 1972 to 2005. The materials in this collection date from 1949 to 2019. 

This collection consists of 21 photographs depicting damage from tornadoes in St. Louis in 1927, and 6 photographs depicting destruction from a fire in an unidentified building in 1939.

The Dennis Owlsey Papers contains filmed lectures, essays, oral history interviews, playlists, and photographs pertaining to his work as a Jazz scholar and critic. Owsley is the long-time host of KWMU's Jazz Unlimited (1983-present), and has written several books on St. Louis Jazz history, including City of Gabriels: The History of Jazz in St. Louis, 1895-1973. Materials of interest in this collection include oral histories Owsley conducted with notable St. Louis Jazz musicians, including Clark Terry, Larry Bowie, and Willie Atkins. Other items of interest include photographs Owsley took of Jazz performances in St. Louis, including the St. Louis Jazz Fest in 1988 and the Mid-America Fest in 1983. The materials in this collection are entirely digital and date from 1978 to 2019.

The Elaine Viets Papers contains correspondence, copy-edited manuscripts, photographs, books, and newspaper clippings pertaining to her career as a columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (1972-1997) and mystery writer of the Francesca Vierling, Dead-End Job, and Josie Marcus, Mystery Shopper series. Materials of interest include correspondence from fans of Viets’s mystery novels wishing her well after her stroke in 2007, as well as photographs from Viets’s book tours and the set of Viets Beat, a KMOV talk show Viets hosted in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Also included in this collection are scrapbooks containing Viets’s columns for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, written between 1972 and 1995. The newspaper clippings are incomplete, however, as they do not contain her St. Louis Post-Dispatch columns written from 1996 to 1997.

The Organization for Black Struggle Records (OBS) contains correspondence, press releases, flyers, and newsletters pertaining to the group's mission to address the needs and issues of the Black working class in the St. Louis Metropolitan Area. Topics of interest include housing and job discrimination cases, criminal justice reform, and apartheid in South Africa.

This collection contains meeting minutes, property appraisal cards, annual reports, VHS tapes, and photographs pertaining to the Mercantile Bancorporation’s mission to provide financial services to customers in the Midwest. Materials of interest include property appraisal cards for residential homes in the St. Louis Metropolitan Region. The cards contain information about the lot size, construction material, and estimated value for each individual property. The materials in this collection date from 1936 to 1999.

The River des Peres Watershed coalition contains photographs and glass slide negatives the organization collected chronicling the construction of the River des Peres Sewerage and Drainage Works. The photographs in the collection primarily depict the construction near the Missouri History Museum.

The Optimist International Records contain board and convention meeting minutes, club files, publications, grant files, newspaper clippings, and photographs documenting the organization’s mission to promote the common good in communities, traditionally supporting youth through various programs. Materials of interest include files on individual Optimist Clubs throughout Missouri and the world, which include membership lists and club reports sent to Optimist International. The materials in this collection date from 1919-2019.