Thank-you card for the Library and Research Center staff from a fifth-grade student at St. John the Baptist Elementary School.

This past spring, 40 fifth-grade students from St. John the Baptist Elementary School in south St. Louis learned how to incorporate reference materials to unlock the history surrrounding their own homes. With St. John teacher Jean Turney leading the charge, the students completed four visits—one to the Missouri History Museum (MHM) and three to MHM’s Library and Research Center (LRC).

With the assistance of MHM staff members Emily Jaycox, Dennis Northcott, and Molly Kodner, the students researched the history of their own houses by using city directories, fire insurance maps, and census data from 1930. Working from printouts of 1930 census data about their homes, students learned pertinent information such as the names of the people who lived there, their relationship to each other, their occupations, and the language they spoke.

		The reading room in the Library and Research Center is quite accurately depicted on this card.

Among other skills, the students learned how to locate their houses and how to read maps. For example, the different colors on the fire insurance maps depict what types of materials were used in erecting the buildings. Each tidbit helped with further research. They also searched for death certificates of the previous homeowners.

A trip to the Museum was incorporated into the experience. There the fifth-graders learned about other cultures on a docent-led tour of the exhibit Jamestown, Quebec, Santa Fe: Three North American Beginnings, then watched a presentation about St. Louis’s history.

Jaycox estimated that 40 percent of the children in Turney’s class are from immigrant families. It was interesting for them to learn about some of St. Louis’s cultures and that some of the former homeowners might have been immigrants themselves, according to Jaycox.

This student enjoyed using the city directories at the Library and Research Center.

For one classroom assignment, Turney asked each student to write a ghost story about the family who lived in their home in 1930. Unbeknownst to the staff at the Library and Research Center, the students were working on another task as well, creating thank-you cards to show their appreciation to MHM.

Jaycox said that Turney learned about the LRC’s facilities and educational opportunities through her involvement in the Forest Park Voyagers program, which works with teachers to integrate Forest Park into their curriculum.

So far, the results of their research outings at the LRC have been positive. Jaycox said Turney’s students have begun taking ownership in Forest Park and are starting to bring their parents to the park to enjoy its many attractions.

 

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