Welcome to Season 5 of the Missouri Humanities Podcast, The Story of US: 250 Years as Told by Missouri. To kick off this season, we talked with Dr. Joel Rhodes, Executive Director of the State Historical Society of Missour. His contribution to our conversation helps get us in gear for a year of storytelling through Missouri’s lens. We talk about Missouri as a crossroads in more ways than one, Missouri’s role in the future of the American Experiment, and what Missourians can expect from the State Historical Society and beyond during the Semi quincentennial year.

As we close out this year’s signature series, we are joined by Missouri Humanities Executive Director, Ashley Beard-Fosnow to discuss how the humanities have shaped American civic leadership and the role of Missouri citizens in contributing to our “American Experiment.”  Especially ahead of America’s 250th anniversary, how can each of us employ the power of the humanities to build a “more perfect union?”

September 28-October 5th is Good Neighbor Week. Signed into law in 2022, Missouri Good Neighbor Week encourages citizens of Missouri to “participate in events and activities to establish connections with their neighbors.” In honor of Good Neighbor Week, we’re sharing a conversation held during our 2025 Humanities Symposium: Ozarks Engaged: Citizenry and the Future of Our Communities

This session is titled Engaged Neighbor, Engaged Citizenry: How Neighboring Strengthens Civic Life. Its goal is to highlight key findings from The State of Neighboring in Missouri (2022-2024) study, exploring shifts in community connection, the impact of declining personal interactions, and local initiatives—like Missouri Good Neighbor Week and the Engaged Neighbor Pledge—that are helping rebuild trust and civic engagement. 

Our conversation included David Burton from University of Missouri Extension and author of the State of Neighboring Report, and Michael Brittain from Restore SGF and Neighborhood Advisory Council Clean Committee. This conversation was recorded on April 5th, 2025, in Springfield, MO.

For this latest episode, we are taking a look back at early American history, hundreds of years ago, to explore the relationships between colonists/early Americans and Indigenous peoples in this part of North America. Specifically, how did Native groups influence early American government and civic engagement? Yes, this is a very big question, and a topic like this could fill volumes of books and hours in a lecture hall, so this episode will just scratch the surface. But, as always, we encourage you to dig in and explore more for yourself!

To help break down this very dense and complicated topic, we spoke with Robert Miller, an enrolled citizen of the Eastern Shawnee Tribe and Professor at the Sandra Day O’Connor School of Law at Arizona State University, and Dr. Peter Kastor, the Samuel K. Eddy Professor in History at Washington University in St. Louis.

This episode can best be described as “US Constitution 101.” Our guest is Dr. Silvana Siddali, professor of history at St. Louis University, and we’re diving into the foundational principles that have shaped the United States from its birth to its modern-day challenges. We’re going on a journey through the creation, evolution, and ongoing debates around the U.S. Constitution. So, grab your thinking caps—because this is a big one!

This episode of our Missouri Voices podcast is a special feature, a recording of the virtual keynote program from our 2025 Signature Series. This program, titled “From History to Action: Presidential Libraries and the Future of Civic Engagement,” highlights the vital role Presidential Libraries play in fostering democracy and civic engagement. The conversation, featuring insights from several Presidential Library leaders, examines how former Presidents have defined and exemplified citizenry throughout history.

Our conversation includes: Dr. Jay Barth, E.D. of the William J. Clinton Presidential Library and Museum in Little Rock, AR; Alex Burden, E.D. of the Truman Library Institute in Kansas City, MO, which is the nonprofit arm of the Truman Presidential Library and Museum, and Christina Shutt, Executive Director of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield Illinois. Leading our conversation is Dr. Lindsay Chervinsky. Executive Director of the George Washington Presidential Library at Mount Vernon, VA.

In our Season 4 premiere, we sit down with Dr. Jay Sexton, Director of the Kinder Institute on Constitutional Democrazy at Mizzou. As we explore the theme of "Civics and Citizenry" throughout this year, Dr. Sexton will guide us through defining some of the ideas and terms we’ll encounter this year and set the stage to help us better understand the role of civics in our daily lives, how they connect to the humanities, and why this conversation is necessary now more than ever.

What do Walt Disney, J.C. Penney, the Pony Express, and Sliced Bread have in common? They all have incredible stories of innovation originating along Missouri’s Highway 36! Also known as The Way of American Genius, Highway 36 from St. Joseph to Hannibal connects individuals and inventions from rural communities in America's Heartland.  

In this special episode, we’re sharing a previously recorded program from earlier this year. In June 2024, Missouri Humanities hosted a Think-N-Drink event in St. Joseph, Missouri, which is a series that engages Missourians in thoughtful dialogue on the humanities in a laid back setting. Join us as we explore the history of Missouri Highway 36 and how it has sparked some of this country’s great innovations and innovators, and dive into community stories about how this period of ingenuity continues to shape our small towns today!

For the latest episode of Missouri Marvels, we dig into a groundbreaking initiative from Washington University in St. Louis, The Wash U and Slavery Project. Our conversation will highlight the St. Louis Integrated Database of Enslavement (or SLIDE), which makes historic Census and other key data searchable online, as well as efforts to  revisit connections between slavery and WashU's earliest leaders. This discussion features Dr. Geoff Ward, Professor of African and African American Studies (AFAS); Director, WashU & Slavery Project, and Kelly Schmidt, Reparative Public Historian and Associate Director of WashU & Slavery Project.

In this episode, we invite you to meet us in St. Louis, Louis, for a conversation about the 1904 World's Fair. Joining our discussion is Adam Kloppe, a public historian with the Missouri Historical Society who worked on the new World's Fair Exhibit at the Missouri History Museum in Forest Park, which opened in April 2024.  We discuss both the new perspectives and harsh realities faced when creating the exhibit, as well as the innovation, grandeur, and spectacle of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition that still inspires wonder and awe to this day.