Photography courtesy of the Missouri History Museum
Historians tend to obsess over numbers: ages and dates, facts and figures. The exhibition that opens this month at the Missouri History Museum (mohistory.org) honoring the city’s 250th anniversary, titled “250 in 250,” includes 50 people, 50 places, 50 moments, 50 images, 50 objects, and more numbers than you can count. But the curators went beyond the statistics to tell the stories that give them meaning. Teenager Lucy Delaney sues for her freedom after being sold into slavery; Mayor William Becker dies tragically in a glider crash; an auto-assembly worker named Chuck Berry becomes a guitar legend. “I think the exhibit will capture the heart and soul of St. Louis,” says Jody Sowell, the museum’s director of exhibitions and research. “Seeing that full spectrum of 250 years of history really makes you appreciate what an interesting place this is to live.”
