Photo by Kevin A. Roberts
If you’re curious about history and architecture, then you’ve noticed it: a castle-like building on Jefferson with arched pink doors and a sign reading “Du-Good Chem Lab & Mfrs.” But finding the story of that intriguing building—and the scientist who owned it for more than 70 years—was tough.
That changed last year, when retired educator and longtime collector Calvin Riley opened the George B. Vashon Museum (2223 St. Louis, 314-749-6322). Housed in a St. Louis Place mansion that at one time was the home of a funeral parlor, it holds more than 4,000 artifacts representing 250 years of regional African-American history, including original documents from the Dred Scott case and heirlooms owned by the family of the museum’s namesake, pioneering attorney George Vashon. It also displays the reassembled laboratory of Dr. Lincoln Diuguid, who graduated with a Ph.D. from Cornell in the ’30s and was immediately offered a corporate job in New York—on the condition that he pass as white. He refused, choosing instead to teach at Harris-Stowe State University and Washington University. In 1947, he bought that building on Jefferson, where he ran his own chemical company (and invented, without credit, a certain popular waterless hand cleanser). He retired in 2011 at age 93 and died in 2015.
“It took a year to clean out the lab,” Riley says. “Now, they are making his building a historical site.”
Photo by Kevin A. Roberts
Lewis Diuguid, the scientist’s son, just finished a biography of his dad; it’s scheduled to be released in the spring, and Lewis is planning to schedule a book-signing at the museum.
Biography is at the heart of what makes the Vashon so powerful. It’s filled with objects that tell people’s stories: teachers, professors, policemen, lawyers, politicians, entrepreneurs, nurses who served at Homer G. Phillips Hospital, Pullman porters, Tuskegee Airmen… It refracts the larger story of history through human lives. Riley says many objects are still in storage, including a huge collection related to the St. Louis Public Schools. Once the elevator is restored, he plans to expand to the second floor so each exhibit can have its own room.
“A lot of people don’t know what a black history museum should look like,” Riley says. “They’re used to seeing one piece here, one piece there. But to see a whole museum that’s primarily dedicated to black history and to St. Louis… When people come here and see those things all in one place, it blows them away.”
FYI This month, the Missouri History Museum brings tours off site to the Vashon as part of #1 in Civil Rights: The African American Freedom Struggle in St. Louis, opening March 11.
Photo by Kevin A. Roberts
The Vashon is part of an African-American history museum district on St. Louis Avenue. Don’t miss the district’s other two museums.
The Griot Museum of Black History
Director and CEO Lois Conley opened the Griot exactly 20 years ago and hand-sculpts all of the figures in the exhibits. In addition to permanent displays about the likes of Josephine Baker, Percy Green, and Miles Davis, the Griot hosts traveling shows from the Smithsonian and other institutions. $7.50; $3.75 for ages 5–12. 10 a.m.–5 p.m. Wed–Sat. 2505 St. Louis, 314-241-7057, thegriotmuseum.com.
Frederick A. Douglass Museum of African-American Vernacular Images
Inspired by Riley, Robert Green has collected vernacular photographs of everyday African-American families that defy stereotypes, including examples by such St. Louis photographers as Frederick R. Parsons and Samuel Smith. Tours by appointment only; call 314-243-1021 for more information. Read Jeannette Cooperman's profile of Green here.
