More than a place to study St. Louis’ past, the Missouri History Museum is a top destination to celebrate the people and places shaping St. Louis’ future.
Every week, the Missouri History Museum hosts free and family-friendly Thursday Nights at the Museum. Sponsored by WashU, the series explores the full array of life and culture in St. Louis through storytelling, panel discussions, film and performances. The party starts weekly at 5 p.m. with children’s crafts, a mini-expo of community organizations and food and drink from local eateries. In May and September, the fun moves outside for the popular Twilight Thursdays concert series.
“This is such an amazing place to learn about the city that you are in,” said Lindsay Newton, who started visiting the museum as an WashU undergraduate and now serves as its director of education and community engagement. “Our goal is for everyone to feel welcome here and discover new reasons to visit and explore.”
On Thursday, Nov. 20, the museum will screen of a segment of “The American Revolution,” the highly anticipated six-part documentary from filmmaker Ken Burns. The film will be followed by a discussion with Aja Williams of Nine PBS; Stephen L. Kling Jr., author of “The Battle of St. Louis, the Attack on Cahokia, and the American Revolution in the West”; and WashU’s Peter Kastor, the Samuel K. Eddy Endowed Professor in history in Arts & Sciences and chair of the Missouri Historical Society board of trustees, which operates the museum, the Missouri Historical Society Library & Research Center and the Soldiers Memorial Military Museum downtown. Curators from WashU Libraries also will be on hand to preview their upcoming exhibit “Unalienable Rights: 250 Years of the Declaration of Independence” and present information about their rare copy of the Declaration of Independence, currently on view at Olin Library.
Carolyn Dolan, community engagement coordinator for the “In St. Louis For St. Louis” initiative, has enlisted more than two-dozen WashU academic programs and student groups to participate in Thursday Nights at the Museum. Recently, WashU student groups WashU Rocketry and Design/Build/Fly led hands-on activities at a program about St. Louis transportation; WashU’s Living Earth Collaborative shared information about its global biodiversity efforts at an event celebrating the Endangered Wolf Center; and the WashU Department of Physics Outreach Committee offered visitors a chance to touch actual bits of meteorites from Mars and the moon during a Twilight Thursday concert.
“Our faculty and students love engaging with museum guests about their areas of study, upcoming campus events and our shared history with the community,” Dolan said. “And the public enjoys talking to our students, learning about what they are doing or sharing their own memories of campus. The ‘In St. Louis, For St. Louis’ office is all about establishing new connections. But you see here that there are many, many historical and current ties connecting WashU to St. Louis. Our histories really are intertwined.”
Since its launch nearly three years ago, the “In St. Louis, For St. Louis” initiative has partnered with a number of community organizations, including the Greater St. Louis Marathon, the Great Rivers Greenway and the Great Forest Park Balloon Race. WashU’s collaboration with the museum is a natural fit, Dolan said. Both institutions boast a proud history of serving and educating St. Louis — WashU was founded in 1853; the Missouri Historical Society was established in 1866. And both institutions are more accessible than people know.
“A big part of our mission is to remind the public of all they can enjoy on the WashU campus from the libraries and the free Kemper Art Museum to the many performances hosted by the performing arts and music departments to WashU Bears athletic events,” Dolan said.
Julia Clark, a programming specialist for the museum’s African American History Initiative, said the benefits flow both ways.
“There is a real opportunity for Gen Z, people who are traditionally missing from museum attendance, to come together and have conversations about why we are here today and our city of St. Louis,” Clark said. “WashU students don’t always know the pathways to the broader community. We can be a resource and place for them to learn and have fun.”
