“. . . I improvised, crazed by the music. . . . Even my teeth and eyes burned with fever. Each time I leaped I seemed to touch the sky and when I regained earth it seemed to be mine alone.”

Josephine Baker only spent the first 15 years of her life in Missouri but she is one of the most well known women to have spent time in the state. She was born in St. Louis, dirt poor, and as a teen attracted attention for her street dancing which landed her in several vaudville shows. She was soon swept off to New York and became a part of the Harlem Rennaisance, dancing as a chorus girl in numerous broadway plays.

Josephine Baker came from extremely humble beginnings and yet developed the confidence and skills to achieve anything she set her mind to. She went against the grain of main stream society - not only in her performances (appearing nude), but also in her efforts to fight for civil rights (forcing integration by refusing to perform for segregated audiences). Baker did all sorts of interesting things: spied on the Nazis, adopted a dozen children, lived in a castle.

She's got a star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame at 6501 Delmar, and is included in the Hall of Famous Missourians in Jefferson City.

Official Josephine Baker Site

View pictures

Every woman who votes has Virginia Minor to thank for it. She launched the Woman Suffrage Association of Missouri in 1867, and five years later became a part of a nation-wide throwdown about women's rights. She first attempted to register to vote and when denied, her husband sued the St. Louis register of voters on her behalf (did you think women could file a lawsuit? Nope). Based on rights outlined in the 14th Amendment, she claimed it was illegal to deny her the right to vote because she was a native-born, free, white citizen of the United States & the State of Missouri over the age of 21. The case was first heard at the Old Courthouse in St. Louis, and eventually went all the way to the US Supreme Court, who ruled that suffrage was not coextensive with citizenship. Although she lost the lawsuit, she was still really tough for trying to shake things up.

Her grave is in Bellefontaine Cemetery in Block 51, Lot 1623. And while you're there, don't forget to stomp on the grave of Smith Gant, just across the road in block 33, lot 2824, who represented the voting commissioner in Ms. Minor's Lawsuit.

Minor v. Happersett

From Humansville to Hollywood

Zoe Akins wrote a play in the early 1950s called The Greeks Had a Word For It. In 1953, it was adapted for the screen as, How to Marry a Millionaire. Marilyn Monroe, Betty Grable and Lauran Bacall starred in the film, and it made Marilyn Monroe popular. Zoe Akins's time in Hollywood came at the culmination of her career, a career where she competed with men playwrights, but was still able to attain a measure of success.

She was born in Humansville in 1886 and went to school at Hosmer Hall (an all girls school in St. Louis) where she studied theater and drama. Writing was her main interest and she wrote over 40 plays, 18 were produced on Broadway. In 1935 she received a Pulitzer Prize for drama for her adaption of The Old Maid.

She passed away in Los Angeles, California in 1958. Check out this book about her life's work.

Fannie Hurst

Fun fact: one of the 2 highest paid authors (male or female) in 1925 grew up in Missouri: Fannie Hurst. No, not from the publishing family, rather, a child born to Jewish immigrants, who grew up as a sheltered only child and graduated from Washington University in 1909. Fannie had a thirst for social knowledge. She shunned her family's support and took a job at a department store in St. Louis to observe "regular people."

She continued her quest in New York City, originally planning to attend Columbia University, but never finishing. Instead she attended the college of life - supporting herself by being a nursemaid, waitress and working in stores all the while studying people. She even frequented tenement homes to see raw humanity.

Her goal? To write. In her twenties, she became a highly successful author, writing novel after novel - several of which were made into ragingly popular movies (Lummox, The Imitation of Life, Backstreet...). Fannie did have her haters, most of whom criticized her for being trashy and overly sentimental. Trashy her novels may be, but because of the deep characterizations, I can't put them down. Nor can I put down her autobiography, The Anatomy of Me, which is full of her observations from mid-20th century living.

Fannie married Jaques Danielson, a Russian pianist in 1915, and in a highly controversial move kept her maiden name, lived separate from Danielson, and kept their marriage a total secret. They also had an agreement to renew their marriage every 5 years only IF they both agreed to stay married. How he picked up his own socks, and made his own meals is still unknown.

A friend of Eleanor Roosevelt, she tried to foster social knowledge and acceptance.

You can visit Fannie's grave in The New Mt. Sinai Cemetery on Gravois Road in St. Louis. She died of cancer in 1968, was cremated and buried with her parents and grandparents in lot I-161.

America's First Kindergarten

Susan Blow opened the first kindergarten in the United States, in St. Louis. While in Germany with her father, Susan saw first hand how Friedrich Froebel's theories (the founder of kindergarten or “children’s garden”) were being applied to early child education. She saw the importance and need back in America. So in 1873 she founded the first successful public kindergarten at Des Peres School in Carondelet, St. Louis Missouri, and ran it for the next eleven years without any pay. Blow taught children in the morning and teachers in the afternoon.

While most classrooms were plain, Blow’s kindergarten classroom was bright and cheerful. It had low tables and short benches just right for small children. The room contained many plants, books, and toys for children to use during work and play. Students learned about color, shapes, and fractions by using simple objects like balls and blocks. They also learned about keeping themselves clean, eating well, and getting regular exercise.

By 1883 every St. Louis public school had a kindergarten, making the city a model for the nation. Devoting her life to early education, Susan Blow was instrumental in establishing kindergartens throughout America.

She died in 1916 and was buried at Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis. You can also see a bust of Ms Blow in the Hall of Famous Missourians in the State Capitol in Jefferson City.