Establishing an official state historical society had been discussed a few years before its eventual founding in 1898 but did not gain substantial backing until the topic was raised at a January 1898 meeting of the Missouri Press Association. Two of the chief supporters were Edwin W. Stephens, later first president of the Society, and
Walter Williams, founder of the
Missouri School of Journalism, and a third, Isidor Loeb, a member of the University of Missouri's history and political science faculty. At the January meeting, the proposal met with support of the members and a committee was established to draw up a constitution and bylaws for a historical society that would serve the state of Missouri. In this formative period of the Society's underpinnings, Stephens and Williams sought and received great support from the University of Missouri. Such was the support, that the not yet formed Society was given space in present-day
Jesse Hall. Progress advanced quickly and only four months later, at the association's annual meeting on May 26, the Missouri Press Association voted to create the State Historical Society of Missouri, and named Stephens as its president, as well, Williams as its secretary. The Society's leaders sought to see the formal adoption of the historical society by the state. In just under a year, their lobbying efforts were awarded by the passage of a bill by the Fortieth General Assembly, signed into law on May 4, 1899, by Governor
Lon Stephens, which established the Society as a trustee of the state. That amount was $4,500, intended to service the Society from 1901 to 1902. The 1899 bill stated precisely the duties of the new state historical society: Newspapers formed the nucleus of the Society's collection, because of the society's close relationship with editors. Membership could be gained for such men by the annual donation of their papers, and after ten years, a lifetime membership granted. Secretary Loeb quickly sought to expand the collection further, putting out a request to citizens of the state for all types of items, both public and private, and including "
Indian relics." The collection received a noted boost in 1901 by the donations of the new secretary, Francis Asbury Sampson, which consisted of nearly 2,000 books and just over 14,000 pamphlets. Additionally, he convinced the
Sedalia Natural History Society to donate an equally considerable collection of books and pamphlets, as well maps and charts. In the same time period, the Society prepared an exhibit on the state's newspapers for the
1904 St. Louis World's Fair and began the first publications of the
Missouri Historical Review. The growing collection necessitated the need for more space to store it. Slowly the society had expanded its presence in Jesse Hall, storing much of its collection in its basement, while taking over the first floor of the building. By 1902, the Society had begun looking for the resources for a new facility, going so far as attempting to lobby library philanthropist
Andrew Carnegie. Just over a dozen years later in 1915, the Society moved into the newly built Ellis Library, its home ever since. While the
Great Depression did not seriously affect the Society, it did become involved in several ways with the
New Deal programs. For a couple years, it hired men from the
National Youth Administration to assist in the moving books and newspapers. As well as hiring women from the
Civil Works Administration to complete needed tasks about the Society such as updating the Society's "Who's Who" files for the state and indexing selected newspapers. The Society also assisted the
Federal Writers' Project and the
Works Progress Administration. The staff of the Society researched each marker and wrote their inscriptions. The Society would expand the historic marker program over the next decades, planting them across the state. Shoemaker also continued to expand the Society's collection, writing personal requests with some success. In 1932, Shoemaker cataloged donations for that year consisting of, "1,207 books, 964 pamphlets, 1 painting, 86 photographs and negatives, 28 manuscript collections, 3 ledger books, 1 medal, 49 clippings, 4 sheets of music, and 4 poems," not including newspaper donations. Shoemaker pushed for more publications from the Society, which ranged from books to newspaper weeklies. From 1925 to 1939, the Society published a series of articles entitled,
This Week in Missouri History, that appeared in at least one paper in 97 of the 114 counties across the state, including St. Louis. Begun in 1922, the Society embarked on a twenty volume project that concluded in 1965, entitled
The Messages and Proclamations of the Governors of the State of Missouri. These volumes included biographical sketches, in addition to the documentation.
Center for Missouri Studies On August 10, 2019, the 198th anniversary of Missouri's statehood, the Center for Missouri Studies opened in Columbia. The center is a large public facility built to replace Ellis Library as the headquarters of the State Historical Society of Missouri. It contains a vastly expanded gallery/collection display area, a library/reading room, classrooms, offices, open and closed stacks, microfilm rooms, art restoration lab, a large event room, and a gift shop. The Center for Missouri Studies is located on Elm Street on the University of Missouri campus in
Downtown Columbia, across from Peace Park. File:Center for Missouri Studies from the southeast (June 2020).jpg|From across Elm Street File:Center for Missouri Studies Elm Street entrance (June 2020).jpg|Elm Street entrance File:Center for Missouri Studies alley (June 2020).jpg|Loading dock and alley File:Center for Missouri Studies southwest corner (June 2020).jpg|Elm and 5th Street File:Center for Missouri Studies North Entrance (June 2020).jpg|North entrance and parking lot ==Collections and exhibits==