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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
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- M-060 Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
- One letter, autograph letter signed, dated 25 November 1878 from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1887-1882) 19th century American Poet, to a Miss Whiting concerning literary references.
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- 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.
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- M-355: Thomas T. Kerslake Overland Journal from Canada to New Zealand
- Thomas T. Kerslake writes of his travels from Ontario, Canada to New Zealand in 1877. He leaves Plattsville, Ontario, Canada on September 29, 1877. Traveling across the United States by rail, he gives accounts of large and small cities (Chicago, Des Moines, Council Bluffs, Omaha, Promontory Point, San Francisco) and of the landscape and wild life on the plains and the Mississippi River. At San Francisco he boards the boat "City of Sydney" sailing across the Pacific Ocean, stopping in the Sandwich (Hawaiian) Islands before landing in Wellington, New Zealand in early November 1877.
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- M-370: German Sisters Captivity Letter
- This retained manuscript copy of an autograph letter by Thomas Neill to the sisters Sophia and Catherine German, was an attempt to secure their release from Cheyenne Indians that had captured the girls., John and Lydia German, as well as their seven children, were moving by wagon via the Smoky Hill Trail to Colorado when they were attacked by a hostile Cheyenne war party. Both parents and three of the seven children were killed and scalped. Four girls were taken captive. The two youngest girls, Addie and Julie, aged 5 and 7 respectively, were rescued in a military raid in November 1874. After the rescue of the two youngest girls, a letter was written, addressed to Sophia, aged 12, and Catherine, aged 17, by Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Neill. The letter advised the sisters to read it Grey-Beard or Stone-Calf to secure the sister's release and for the Cheyennes to submit themselves to the mercy of the government. The sisters were rescued in March 1875 and reunited with their sisters at Fort Leavenworth.
Mercantile Library Collections Directory
Mercantile Special Collections Directory
Barriger Library Collections Directory
Barriger Special Collections Directory