St. Louis Mercantile Library Special Collections

The special collections of the St. Louis Mercantile Library consist of over 400 individual collections with archival materials numbering in the millions, including over 100 historic newspaper titles, presidential letters, early travel diaries and civil war era letters, fur trade records and the newspaper and printing morgue of the St. Louis Globe Democrat, some of which is available digitally. The M-Series of collections represents the core of the Mercantile's holdings. Finding aids and descriptions can be accessed from the library's website through the Mercantile Special Collections Directory.
St. Louis Mercantile Library at the University of Missouri-St. Louis
M-164 St. Louis Fairs and Exhibitions Collection
The collection concerns the Mississippi Valley Sanitary Fair of 1864 and the Louisiana Purchase Exposition of 1904. It includes photographs, official fair newspapers, a typescript history, brochures, and other ephemera of two of St. Louis's most noteworthy and historic celebrations.
M-169: The Emil Boehl Collection
Emil Boehl was a St. Louis photographer who primarily focused his camera on St. Louis streets, buildings, and locales. Born in Calvoerde, Germany, in 1839, Boehl immigrated to St. Louis in 1854. After serving in the Union Army during the Civil War, Boehl returned to St. Louis in 1864 and opened a photography studio with Lawrence Koenig that spring. With Koenig focusing on portraiture, Boehl became one of the most prolific St. Louis scenic photographers active in the latter half of the 19th Century. The Boehl/Koenig partnership lasted until 1897. Boehl retired from photography in 1919 and died later that year on the 12th of December. The Emil Boehl Collection consists of three series. The collection contains images dating from 1850 to ca. 1906. The collection’s archival materials include photographic prints and negatives. According to historians Peter E. Palmquist and Thomas R. Kailbourn, Boehl’s career was from 1864 to 1919, and he was known to sell prints of Thomas Easterly’s daguerreotypes. In light of those facts, some dates in the Boehl Collection may be labelled incorrectly and/or some images may not be Boehl’s.
M-365: Latta-Hord Laundry Company Photograph
This collection consists of a single photograph purchased from Ian Brabner Rare Americana. It's a circa 1909 photograph of the Latta-Hord Laundry Company in St. Louis, Missouri. The building has clean new signs advertising "We Want Your Work". The company's employees include various women posed together at the corner of the building and men who stand to the sides next to the company's horse-drawn carriages. Others peer out of the second story windows.
M-514 Early St. Louis Glass Plate Photograph Collection
This collection of glass plate negatives depicts scenes of St. Louis at the turn of the 20th century including the construction of the 1904 World’s Fair in Forest Park, the newly built Compton Hill Water Tower, the Cathedral Basilica, the St. Louis School and Museum of Fine Arts and Brookings Hall at Washington University, a variety of farm houses and homes around the city, steamboats along the riverfront, and families enjoying various activities, picnicking, shopping, etc.

Mercantile Library Collections Directory

Mercantile Special Collections Directory

Barriger Library Collections Directory

Barriger Special Collections Directory

Pott Library Collections Directory

Pott Special Collections Directory