The Missouri economy grew steadily from the end of the war to the early 20th century. Railroads replaced the rivers, trains supplanted steamboats. From 817 miles of track in 1860, there were 2000 miles in 1870 and 8000 by 1909. Railroads built new towns as needed to provide repair and service facilities; the old river towns decline. Kansas City lacking a navigable river, became the rail center of the West, exploding from 4400 population 1860 to 133,000 by 1890. Cities of all sizes grew, as the proportion of Missourians living in communities over 2000 population jumped from 17 percent in 1860, to 38 percent in 1900. Coal mining providing the locomotives, factories, Stores and homes with fuel, grew rapidly, as did the lumbering industry in the Ozarks which provided the timber for cross ties and smaller bridges. St. Louis remained the number one railroad center, unloading 21,000 carloads of merchandise in 1870, 324,000 in 1890, and 710,000 in 1910. The total tonnage of freight carried on all Missouri railroads doubled and redoubled again from 20 million tons in 1881 to 130 million in 1904.
Commercial revival and urban growth {{Historical populations|title=Population of Missouri|type=USA|align=right The most important economic change of late 19th century Missouri was the arrival and growth of railroads. The opening of Missouri to the national market by way of the railroad provided the impetus for specialization in nearly every commercial sector. It shifted the main traffic away from the river system to the East-West Valley system. Although the first railroads were built in Missouri during the 1850s, significant expansion began during the 1870s: between 1870 and 1880, Missouri trackage nearly doubled from 2,000 to 3,965 miles. The railroad encouraged growth of surface roads; the arrival of the
St. Louis–San Francisco Railway in Springfield in 1870 led to the establishment of several roads nearby that connected a region more than 100 miles across. Another outcome of railroad expansion was the dramatic increase in the population and wealth of urban Missouri. In Jefferson City, the neighborhood near the
Pacific Railroad roundhouse became wealthy due to new businesses opening in the area, such as the Dulle Mills, the Jefferson City Gas Works, and the Jefferson City Produce Company. The town of Sedalia was itself platted because of the proximity to the Pacific Railroad, and the opening of the
Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad in the town only accelerated growth. Of note during this period of activity was the U.S. Army's investment in river management issues such as navigation, flood mitigation and commerce. The formal establishment of a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers District at Saint Louis on February 19, 1872, signaled a significant effort by the federal government to provide regional leadership in the post Civil War era. Among the rural towns of Missouri,
Joplin experienced the greatest growth during the late 19th century, largely as a result of the discovery of iron ore near town in the early 1870s. A group of Joplin investors created a railroad line in 1877 to facilitate movement of iron and coal to the area; in 1879, the Joplin and Girard Railroad was sold to the St. Louis—San Francisco Railway. Nonexistent in 1870, Joplin's population grew to 7,000 in 1880 and 10,000 in 1890. Another example of the rapid growth brought by the railroad was Cape Girardeau. As a result of the
Panic of 1873, an early railroad venture there failed before construction began; however, railroad promoter and lawyer
Louis Houck was employed to revamp the company, and in late 1880, Houck managed the completion of a 14.4-mile stretch connecting Cape Girardeau to the
Iron Mountain Railroad. Houck continued to successfully expand the road, ultimately building more than 500 miles of track in southeast Missouri. pioneered the use of refrigerator cars to market beer nationally. St. Louis and Kansas City grew dramatically during the decades after the Civil War. St. Louis in particular benefited from greater railroad connections after the construction of the
Eads Bridge in 1874 across the Mississippi River. During the 1870s alone, the value of manufactured goods in St. Louis grew from $27 million to $114 million, and during the 1880s doubled again to $228 million. Among St. Louis's greatest success stories was that of the
Anheuser-Busch brewery, founded in the 1860s by
Eberhard Anheuser, who partnered with his son-in-law
Adolphus Busch. Busch pioneered pasteurization to keep beer fresh, and he marketed Anheuser-Busch products nationally using
refrigerator cars and by providing saloons with free prints of a painting that included advertising for the company. Kansas City also expanded rapidly during the period; its population increased from 3,500 in 1865 to more than 32,000 in 1870, largely due to the promotional efforts of
Joseph G. McCoy. Kansas City became a hub for both meatpacking and wheat milling, and
Armour & Company became a major employer in the city. Canned beef production in Kansas City totaled nearly 800,000 tins in 1880, expanding to more than 4 million tins in 1890. By 1878, the city processed more than 9 million bushels of wheat a year, and in 1880, eleven railroad lines operated in the city.
Decline of Southern trade During the Civil War the Federal government closed the Mississippi to ordinary commerce so that military traffic could move faster. When the war was over, the prosperity of the South was ruined. Hundreds of steamboats had been destroyed, and levees had been damaged by warfare and flooding. Much of the commerce of the West that before the war headed to New Orleans, via the Mississippi, now went to the East Coast via the
Great Lakes and by the rapidly multiplying new lines of railways connecting through Chicago. Some revival of commerce on the Mississippi took place following the war, but this was checked by a sandbar at the mouth of the Southwest Pass in its delta on the Gulf of Mexico. Ead's jetties created a new shipping passage at the mouth of the South Pass in 1879, but the facilities for the transfer of freight in New Orleans were far inferior to those employed by the railways, and the steamboat companies did not prosper.
Agricultural changes and expansion Up to the 1880s the six southeastern counties of Missouri's
Bootheel – swampy and subject to flooding – remained heavily forested, underdeveloped, and underpopulated. Beginning in the 1880s, railroads opened up the Bootheel to logging. In 1905, the Little River Drainage District constructed an elaborate system of ditches, canals, and levees to drain swampland. As a result, population more than tripled from 1880 to 1930, and cotton cultivation flourished. By 1920 it was the chief crop, attracting newcomers to the farms from Arkansas and Tennessee. The railroad brought significant changes to Missouri agriculture during the late 19th century, bringing both external markets for local crops and competition from producers in other parts of the United States.
Norman J. Colman, an agriculturalist who served on the state Board of Agriculture from 1867 to 1903, encouraged Missouri farmers to adopt scientific farming techniques to compete in the national market. In 1870, Colman convinced the General Assembly to establish a College of Agriculture at the University of Missouri in Columbia, a process aided by state legislator and university curator
James S. Rollins. The well-known agricultural researcher Jeremiah W. Sanborn served as the college's second dean starting in 1882, and in 1883, the college sponsored dozens of agricultural institutes across Missouri to educate farmers on modern practices. Colman continued to encourage agriculture in Missouri after his appointment in 1885 as U.S. Commissioner of Agriculture (in 1888, Colman became the first Secretary of Agriculture when the department became a cabinet-level agency). As a result of the efforts of Colman, Sanborn, and others at the University of Missouri, the number of Missouri farms experienced significant growth during the 1870s. At the beginning of the decade, the state had slightly less than 150,000 farms and 9.1 million acres of farmland; by 1880, there were more than 215,000 farms and 16.7 million acres of farmland. With the arrival of the railroad, some counties and towns experienced rapid growth: in 1870, rural
Wayne County had no railroad connection, had 27,500 acres of farmland, and produced 290,000 bushels of corn. In the early 1870s, however the town of
Piedmont in Wayne County was made a junction of the Iron Mountain Railroad, and production expanded dramatically; by 1880, the county had 47,000 acres of farmland and produced 525,000 bushels of corn. Piedmont itself went from an unplatted village in 1871 to a town of 700 residents by 1880, with professional and retail workers who made the town attractive to farmers. Despite the growth brought by the railroads and new techniques, Missouri continued to undergo urbanization during the late 19th century. Labor-saving devices such as the sulky plow, corn planter, mower, and reaper made most farm laborers more productive, with a surplus moving to town. In addition, the competition brought by the railroad generally caused a decline in farm prices after 1873; in 1874, a bushel of Missouri corn sold for 67 cents, but its price dropped to 24 cents in 1875 and remained in the 20 to 40-cent range for most of the 1870s and 1880s. As a result, although the acreage of Missouri farmland had increased from 1870 to 1880, the value of crops produced saw a decline from $103 million to slightly less than $96 million in the same period. In response to declining prices and opportunities for new scientific methods farmers began forming chapters of
The Grange. Oliver Hudson, a U.S. Bureau of Agriculture employee, formed the first Missouri Grange chapter in 1870, and by 1875, Missouri led the nation with over 2,000 chapters. In addition to organizing social events for farmers and their wives, the Grange organized them economically by creating trade fairs and collective sales of farm produce, and the group opened no fewer than eight cooperative stores where goods could be bought at reasonable prices by Grange members. Grange stores operated in several market towns. In spite of the efforts of the Grange, most Missouri farmers remained economically disadvantaged during the 1880s and 1890s. As it had during the 1870s, the number of farms and acreage under cultivation again increased in the 1880s and 1890s. However, roughly half of the state's claimed land remained uncultivated in 1900, and in 1903, the state still had more than 400,000 acres of unclaimed federal land available under the
Homestead Act. By 1900, urbanization had reduced the rural population to two-thirds of the state total, down from more than 75% at the close of the Civil War. After significant declines during the 1880s, land prices recovered slightly during the 1890s, although the market remained unstable and largely dependent on the particulars of the farm. Another factor in the continued economic issues of the farmer was the increasing availability of credit from eastern bankers; high interest rates frequently led to repossession of farmland and sheriff's sales during the 1890s. The late 19th century was a time of continuity in terms of crops produced in Missouri, with the majority of acreage given to the production of corn and wheat. In 1900, farmers devoted more than 7.5 million acres (of nearly 23 million total) to corn, although yields declined overall as less productive and fertile land was brought into use. Most corn in Missouri also was consumed in the state by livestock, and hay and pasture land for livestock made up 10.5 million acres of farmland in 1900. Livestock income provided 55% of farm income in 1900, or roughly $142 million. The largest group of livestock consisted of swine, totalling 4.5 million in 1900, followed by cattle, which in 1899 totalled nearly 3 million. Missouri farmers produced 7% of the national total of hogs in 1900, and only Illinois and Iowa had larger herds. Sheep, goats, and turkeys were insignificant, although chicken raising was an important supplementary income for farmers during the 1890s; as with swine, the state ranked third among poultry raising states. Missouri mules remained nationally famous. From 1890 to 1900, mules in the state increased from 196,000 to nearly 250,000. During the
Boer War from 1899 to 1902, the state shipped more than 100,000 mules to Britain, and the U.S. government purchased significant mule stocks during the
Spanish–American War in 1898 and 1899.
Ozark farming Before 1870 the original Ozark settlers in the southwest part of the state were part-time farmers, herders and hunters. During 1870–1900 the region became one of general full-time small farm operations, with diverse crops and livestock. Hunting and fishing became leisure activities, rather than a necessity for subsistence. After 1900 commercial agriculture increased and livestock production surpassed cultivation. The general farm of yore vanished. Only dairy farming survived the pressure of livestock production. By the 1970s, however, agriculture in the Ozarks had come full circle. Many modern farmers survived only by becoming part-time farmers. Much of the population commutes to paid employment for most of their income, in much the same way as the pioneers had been forced to diversify their efforts.
Women, family and society In the early nineteenth century, Missouri had two divergent family styles—the French and the American. The French placed the mother at the head of the house; the Americans treated the mother as little more than a fellow-worker who often took second place to the men in the family. Most of the immigration to Missouri in the nineteenth century was of families, and women left diaries, letters, and memoirs documenting preparations for the journey, the nerve-wracking Atlantic crossing, and the long train rides from New York City to St. Louis and their final destinations. Most came from Germany, as well as Ireland, Bohemia, Hungary, Italy, Poland, and Jewish settlements in Eastern Europe. The largest groups were Catholic, Lutheran, and German. Once arrived, the women—mostly in their twenties—coped with the problems of daily life in an unfamiliar and occasionally hostile environment, with a limited network of kinfolk available to help. The normative standard for
German American women was to be good, diligent, submissive, and silent housewives. The historical records show more variety, with many being cantankerous, complaining, and unwilling to subordinate themselves. These nonconformists exerted a greater influence on the community scene than they could by strict conformity to generally accepted behavior.
Modernization Throughout the century most rural families lived traditional lifestyles, based on male dominance. Efforts to modernize rural life, and upgrade the status of women, were reflected in numerous movements, including Public schools, women's church activities, temperance reform, and the campaign for woman suffrage. Reformers sought to modernize the rural home by transforming its women from producers to consumers. The Missouri Women Farmers' Club (MWFC) and its management was especially active. The great majority of women were full-time homemakers, whose labor created materials and clothing, food, agriculture and basics of life for their families. After the Civil War some women became wage earners in industrializing cities. It was common for widows to operate boardinghouses or small shops; younger women worked in tobacco, shoe, and clothing factories. Some women helped their husbands publish local newspapers, which flourished in every county seat and small city. In 1876, women began to attend the Missouri Press Association's meetings; by 1896 the women formed their own press association, and at the end of the century, women were editing or publishing 25 newspapers in Missouri. They were especially active in developing features to entertain their women readers, and to help women with their housework and child-rearing.
Schooling Before the Civil War Missouri followed the southern pattern that downplayed public schooling, as well-to-do families patronized local private academies. Ambitious but poor parents pooled their resources to hire part-time teachers for their children. During Reconstruction, the Radicals in power strongly favored modernization through the rapid growth in public schools. Their 1865 Constitution, and numerous state laws, called for a large network of public schools, including ones for black children. The plan was to require four months terms of schooling every year for children. Under the aggressive leadership of state superintendent of schools Thomas A. Parker, the number of public schools jumped from 48,000 in 1867 to 75,000 in 1870, as enrollment grew from 169,000 to 280,000. The 1870 totals included 9100 black students. About 59 percent of the eligible white children attended school annually in 1870, along with 21 percent of the eligible black children. Parker built up organizations of teachers at the county level, as well as the state level, holding numerous clinics to provide the pedagogical education the teachers lacked. New normal schools, to train teachers, were opened at Kirksville and Warrensburg in 1870. The all-black Lincoln Institute in Jefferson City opened an education department to train black teachers. A new state university was founded in Columbia, with land-grant federal aid. However it had to share some of that aid with the new school of mines at Rolla. The public school system across the state was heavily oriented toward providing the three Rs of elementary education. High schools were rare outside the major cities. Families that could afford to have children attend school rather than hold a paying job patronized 45 academies in 1870, most of which were attached to the 37 small private colleges. Most were run by religious denominations. St. Louis, under the leadership of
William Torrey Harris as superintendent of schools 1868–1880, developed one of the nation's outstanding public school system, complete with the first public kindergartens. Once the conservatives returned to power in 1872, however, public schooling became again a low priority matter in rural Missouri.
Ozark traditionalism In highly traditional, remote parts of the Ozark Mountains there was little demand for modern medicine. Childbirth, aches, pains and broken bones were handled by local practitioners of folk medicine, most of whom were women. Their herbs, salves and other remedies often healed sick people, but their methods relied especially on recognizing and ministering to their patients' psychological, spiritual, and physical needs. Traditionalism and
Hillbilly themes have become a money-making enterprise in the 21st century Ozarks, as
Branson, Missouri is a major tourist attraction featuring traditional folklore.
Women Before the war the police and municipal judges used their powers to regulate rather than eliminate the sex trades. In
antebellum St. Louis, prostitutes working in orderly, discreet brothels were seldom arrested or harassed—unless they were unusually boisterous, engaged in sexual activities outside their established district, or violated other rules of appropriate conduct. In 1861 St. Louis passed a vagrancy ordinance, criminalizing any woman who walked on the streets after sunset. In 1871 the city passed a law forbidding women from working in bars and saloons, even if the women were owners. These laws were meant to keep prostitution at a minimum, but adversely affected women who were legitimately employed. Middle-class women demanded entry into higher education, and the state colleges reluctantly admitted them. Culver-Stockton College opened in the 1850s as a coeducational school, the first west of the Mississippi. Women were first admitted to the normal school of Missouri State University at Columbia in 1868, but they had second-class status. They were shunted into a few narrow academic programs, restricted in their use of the library, separated from the men, and forced to wear uniforms. They were not allowed to live on campus. President Samuel Spahr Laws was the most restrictive administrator, enforcing numerous rules and the wearing of drab uniforms. Still, the number of women students at the school grew despite the difficulties. When the Missouri School of Mines and Metallurgy opened at Rolla in 1871, its first class had 21 male and six female students. Well into the 20th century, the women who attended the school were given an arts and music program that was little better than a high school education.
Josephine Silone Yates (1859–1912) was an African-American activist who devoted her career to combating discrimination and uplifting her race. She taught at the Lincoln Institute in Jefferson City, and served as the first president of the Women's League of Kansas City; she was later president of the
National Association of Colored Women. Yates tried to prepare women for roles as wage earners in Northern cities. She also encouraged black ownership of land for those who remained in the South. Since whites judged blacks by the behavior of the lower class, she argued that advancement of the race ultimately depended on working-class adherence to a strict moral code.
Progressive reform and politics The Progressive Era (1890s to 1920s) saw numerous prominent leaders from Missouri trying to end corruption and modernize politics, government and society.
St. Louis World's Fair of 1904 Governor
David Rowland Francis was a key main promoter of the St. Louis World's Fair of 1904, serving as President of what was formally titled
Louisiana Purchase Exposition. Historians generally emphasize the prominence of themes of race and empire, and the Fair's long-lasting impact on intellectuals in the fields of history, art history, architecture and anthropology. From the point of view of the memory of the average person who attended the fair, it primarily promoted entertainment, consumer goods and popular culture.
Governor Joseph Folk Joseph Folk was a key leader who made a strong appeal to middle class and rural evangelical Protestants. Folk, a Democrat, was elected governor as a progressive reformer in the
1904 election. He promoted what he called "the Missouri Idea", the concept of Missouri as a leader in public morality through popular control of law and strict enforcement. He successfully conducted antitrust prosecutions, ended free railroad passes for state officials, extended bribery statues, improved election laws, required formal registration for lobbyists, made racetrack gambling illegal, and enforced the Sunday-closing law. He helped enact Progressive legislation, including an initiative and referendum provision, regulation of elections, education, employment and child labor, railroads, food, business, and public utilities. A number of efficiency-oriented examiner boards and commissions were established during Folk's administration, including many agricultural boards and the Missouri library commission. During 1892–1904 the Democratic Party lost its dominance of Missouri state politics, and by the 1920s the Republican and Democratic parties were roughly evenly matched in strength. Partly this was due to corruption among Democrats in St. Louis, but also Republicans gained from presiding over the swift, decisive American victory in the
Spanish–American War of 1898. In the
1904 presidential election, Missouri was carried by President
Theodore Roosevelt, the first time the state had voted Republican in ten presidential elections, and was on course to become a swing state for most of the 20th century.
Farming Between the Civil War and the end of
World War II, Missouri transitioned from a rural economy to a hybrid industrial-service-agricultural economy as the Midwest rapidly industrialized. The expansion of railroads to the West transformed Kansas City into a major transportation hub within the nation. The growth of the Texas cattle industry along with this increased rail infrastructure and the invention of the
refrigerated boxcar also made Kansas City a major
meatpacking center, as large
cattle drives from Texas brought herds of cattle to
Dodge City and other Kansas towns. There, the cattle were loaded onto trains destined for Kansas City, where they were butchered and distributed to the eastern markets. The first half of the twentieth century was the height of Kansas City's prominence and its downtown became a showcase for stylish
Art Deco skyscrapers as construction boomed.
Children The Missouri Children's Code Commission was the product of a Progressive reform movement which involved prominent educators and social workers and a coalition of citizens' groups. The first commission began in 1915 to develop proposals to protect children from harsh working conditions and deal with delinquency, neglect, and child welfare. Its proposals were rejected by the conservative legislature. Appointed in 1917, the second commission revised the earlier proposals and actively engaged in an educational promotional campaign, gaining the support of various organizations such as the Women's Christian Temperance Union, The Red Cross, women's clubs, suffrage groups, and others. The Missouri Children's Code was finally passed in 1919. In 1919 Missouri became the 11th state to ratify the
19th amendment, which granted women the right to vote.
Environment During the Progressive Era in the early twentieth century, there were three competing visions of appropriate control and use of water resources of the Missouri River; they were expressed by three organizations: the
Kansas City Commercial Club (KCCC), the Missouri River Sanitary Conference (MRSC), and the Missouri Valley Public Health Association (MVPHA). The KCCC's vision of commercial development envisioned the "Economic River." MRSC's vision of a shared water supply requiring protection through community cooperation emphasized the "Healthy River." MVPHA's vision of commercial development coupled with individual efforts to prevent pollution was a compromise blending of the first two. The "Economic River" represents the Progressive approach focused on professional elites and federal solutions, whereas the "Healthy River" represents the approach focused on community leadership and solutions, as well as an early example of holistic, locally oriented conservation. Sarvis (2000, 2002) traces the controversy over the creation of the
Ozark National Scenic Riverways (ONSR) in southeastern Missouri. Boasting clear rivers and spectacular landscape, the area saw a political contest for control of river recreational development between two federal agencies, the
National Park Service (NPS) and the
U.S. Forest Service. Local residents opposed NPS plans that included eminent domain acquisition of private property. Both agencies presented rival bills in Congress, and in 1964 the NPS plan was selected by Congress. In the long run the NPS has successfully accommodated and supervised OSNR recreation for two million visitors a year. By contrast, the Forest Service's nearby recreational activities have handled no more than 16,000 visitors yearly.
Missouri in World War I Most Missouri residents responded with fervent patriotism to the demands of World War I. Voluntary enlistment in the Army were high, and there was little significant draft resistance. However,
German Americans had opposed entry into the war, and their ethnic strongholds were mostly cool or hostile to the war effort. They were often denounced as unpatriotic. Officials and communities throughout the state mounted their own displays of patriotism and support for the Allies, with special emphasis on mobilizing public opinion and further strengthening agricultural programs and economies that had already been bolstered by prewar market demands. While there were some traditionalistic farmers who did not believe America should be in the war, more representative was the case of Harry Truman. He operated a farm near Kansas City (1906–17) that was prosperous and strengthened him physically and emotionally for the future. Overall rural Missouri gave strong support to the war effort. In 1917 when the U.S. Food Administration, headed by
Herbert Hoover, began promoting voluntary guidelines for increased farm production and reduced consumer use of items in short supply, Missouri met, and in many cases exceeded, the national standards. ==Expansion, recession, and war (1920–1945)==