Hidden in Plain Sight: A Missouri History Podcast

Travel to the Mark Twain Birthplace State Historic Site in Florida, Missouri, to explore the small cabin where Samuel Clemens—later known as Mark Twain—was born, and to hear of his daughter Clara, who protected his legacy and helped support efforts to preserve his home.

Travel to Missouri’s beautiful Ozark region, and to Shannon County, to explore the Shannondale community and its historic role in restoring forest land stripped bare by early twentieth-century logging.

This episodes takes us to the Harry S. Truman National Historic Site in Independence, Missouri, a place closely connected to the life of First Lady Bess Truman and the hometown roots of President Harry S. Truman. There, we explore the story of Bess Wallace Truman, who grew up in Independence and was famously private, trying our best to uncover her personality by reading letters and interviewing site park ranger at and Truman afficianado, Jeffrey B Wade.

Travel to the Nodaway County Historical Society in Maryville, Missouri, to explore the story of Alma Nash, the leader of an all-women's band that traveled to Washington, D.C., where they marched in a suffrage parade in 1913. We speak with historian Elyssa Ford and with Melissa Middleswart of the Nodaway Historical Society, who help explain the cultural world that made the band possible, and the impact it had on the community.

Travel to Carthage, Missouri’s Jasper County Courthouse, a striking historic building connected to an unusual moment in the history of women and public office. There, we speak with Jasper County Clerk and former Missouri State Representative, Charlie Davis, who shares the story of Annie White Baxter, who in 1890 was elected Jasper County Clerk—decades before women had the right to vote in Missouri. Her victory meant that an all-male electorate chose a woman to hold one of the county’s most important administrative offices, an extraordinary outcome for its time.

Travel to the Missouri School for the Deaf in Fulton, Missouri, to learn about the deaf poet and journalist Laura Redden Searing, as researched and told by graduates of the MSD. Learn of Searing's path to the MSD and her career as a writer and Civil War correspondent. Publishing under the pen name Howard Glyndon, she reported from Washington, D.C., wrote poetry about the war, and built a national reputation as a literary voice during one of the country’s most turbulent periods.

Travel to Ralls County, Missouri to hear the story of Martha Jane Chisley Tolton, an enslaved woman who liberated herself and her three young children during the Civil War. Her son, Augustus Tolton, would grow up to become the first known African-American Catholic priest to serve in the United States, building Chicago’s first black parish, and serving congregants across the color line during a time of deep racial division. We speak with members of the Ralls Counry Historical Society about the history of the Brush Creek Church, including the graveyard where many enslaved were buried. We also speak with Bishop Joseph Perry of the Chicago Archdiocese, who now serves as the postulator for the cause of canonization for Father Tolton.

Travel to the Fulton Courthouse in Callaway County, Missouri and learn about one of the most troubling events in the state’s history, and a decades-long effort to right historic wrongs. Hear the story of Celia, an enslaved teenager who in 1855 was convicted and executed for murder, after daring to fight back against sexual violence.Learn the story of Celia’s descendants, and people across Missouri who have banded together to press for justice for Celia, to finally, 169 years after her death, secure her a historic pardon.

Visit The Old Courthouse in St. Louis, and learn about the case of Virginia Minor, a women's suffrage leader who in 1872 attempted to register to vote, was refused, and soon after, with her husband Francis Minor, launched a legal fight that made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Though unsuccessful, their case helped pave the way for women to win the right to vote.Then, step onto St. Louis' Locust Street, site of the historic 1916 "Golden Lane" protest, where thousands of women gathered in a silent procession that spanned twelve city blocks, in support of voting rights for women.

We visit the Historic Daniel Boone Home in the Femme Osage Valley where we learn that the frontier story is more complicated than legend suggests.With guides Benjamin Gall, historian for the St. Charles County Parks Department, and Kami Ahrens, Director of Business Operations for the Boone Home, we learn about women like Olive Vanbibber Boone, who farmed and protected the property; about agricultural and production methods adapted from Native American knowledge; and about the enslaved men and women whose labor shaped the Boone Home, but whose names are often absent from the frontier narrative.

Travel to Cape Girardeau County and Trail of Tears State Park, a site overlooking the Mississippi River that marks one of the most painful chapters in American history — the Trail of Tears, which saw some 60,000 Native Americans forced from their homelands in the Eastern United States and sent to lands promised to them in Oklahoma. This included some 13,000 members of the Cherokee Nation, who traveled the northern route of the Trail, traversing Missouri in the coldest of winter of 1838-1839.We talk to English Professor Chris Otto about the story of a woman whose death on the trail took on mythological proportions as she became known as “Princess Otahki,” and was venerated by the park and the neaby town of Cape Girardeau. And we speak with Will Chavez, of the Cherokee Nation and its annual “Remember the Removal Bike Ride,” to learn more about the trail, the story behind the Otahki myth, and how the Nation commemorates removal today.