Vivian Gibson grew up in Mill Creek, a neighborhood of St. Louis razed in 1955 to build a highway. Her family, friends, church community, and neighbors were all displaced by urban renewal. In this moving memoir, Gibson recreates the every day lived experiences of her family, including her college-educated mother, who moved to St. Louis as part of the Great Migration, her friends, shop owners, teachers, and others who made Mill Creek into a warm, tight-knit, African-American community, and reflects upon what it means that Mill Creek was destroyed by racism and "urban renewal."

Several copies may be checked out from the Library. Archives copy does not circulate.

Thesis written in 1980

Includes "five categories of the black experience in St. Louis: businesses, churches and religions, significant events, housing, and personalities." Written as expansion to 1974 booklet "The Ville" and Friends of Vaugn Cultural Center black history bus tour "Tour and Taste, St. Louis."

A searing portrait of the racial dynamics that lie inescapably at the heart of our nation, told through the turbulent history of the city of St. Louis. From Lewis and Clark's 1804 expedition to the 2014 uprising in Ferguson, American history has been made in St. Louis. And as Walter Johnson shows in this searing book, the city exemplifies how imperialism, racism, and capitalism have persistently entwined to corrupt the nation's past. St. Louis was a staging post for Indian removal and imperial expansion, and its wealth grew on the backs of its poor black residents, from slavery through redlining and urban renewal. But it was once also America's most radical city, home to anti-capitalist immigrants, the Civil War's first general emancipation, and the nation's first general strike -- a legacy of resistance that endures. A blistering history of a city's rise and decline, The Broken Heart of America will forever change how we think about the United States.

In this pioneering study, Henry W. Berger analyzes St. Louis's imperial engagement from its founding in 1764 to the present day, revealing the intersection of local political, cultural, and economic interests in foreign affairs.

The go-to book for St. Louis history -- if you have trouble getting a library copy check GoogleBooks
http://books.google.com/books

Great context for local history - copies in Olin and Archives, and read full text on GoogleBooks

1933 Thesis

From original glass negatives; includes people, houses, neighborhoods, World War I, funerals and cemeteries from the Bevo Mill neighborhood.

A study of women in St. Louis during the Greta Depression, including interviews and surveys of black women and while women. Includes maps and population charts.

Covering the history of a local Settlement House on the North side of St. Louis. The archival records for Grace Hill House are at UMSL, see http://www.umsl.edu/~whmc/guides/whm0554.htm
for more details.

Includes statistics, municipality data, and maps.

Includes useful references to sources on pages 225 - 230. Includes area surrounding East St. Louis, including Monsanto, Illinois.

"This chronicle of East St. Louis' colorful and controversial past provides a key to understanding the challenges and the hope that can still be found in today's community"

Written by a former resident and police officer, the first chapter includes recollections about East St. Louis and Monsanto, Illinois.