1861 Missouri Speaks
Rebooting History
Core Volumes
The Core Volumes are the heart of the Missouri Speaks Collection, presenting documents and articles in chronological order with pictures, editor's notes, footnotes, and maps. Series 1-5 make up the Core volumes, and each series is described briefly below. Click on the orange boxes to preview pages. More samples will be available over time. If you have any questions or suggestions regarding a volume, please submit them through the Contact Us page. For more volumes, see the Special Purpose Volumes page.
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Copyright Notice: All the content on this website, including the PDF volume samples are copyrighted by Fry's Lyon Foundation, Inc. They are for personal use only and must not be copied or distributed without express written consent of Fry's Lyon Foundation, Inc.​​
Series Sampler
Samples from each series of the Missouri Speaks Collection volumes. The 60-plus volumes represented within this sampler contain transcribed copies of Civil War-era newspapers, primary source documents, and government reports presented in chronological order, with additional volumes arranged by subject or officer/official concerned.
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Click on the orange box below to preview a PDF of the Series Sampler.
Core Volumes - Series 1-5
Series 1 - Missouri Democrat
The Missouri Democrat was a Republican Party, anti-slavery, Unconditional Unionist newspaper published in the slave state of Missouri. The articles cover the slavery debate, secession crisis, and political and military issues. Articles are transcribed, modernized, footnoted, and include explanatory notes to help contextualize the articles. Maps and pictures are added to help the reader visualize the information provided. A timeline, keyed to the articles, a finding aid section, and an index are also provided.
Series 2- Primary Source Documents
Transcribed copies of documents, letters, reports, proclamations, military orders, etc. All items are modernized, footnoted, with supporting maps and pictures. This series is a repository of primary source documents dealing with Missouri, culled from many separate repositories dealing with the Civil War period in Missouri.
Series 5 - Missouri Republican Newspaper
The Missouri Republican was a Democratic Party-supporting newspaper that was pro-slavery and Conditional Unionist. It advocated for compromise rather than coercion to keep the cotton states in the Union. The selected articles cover the slavery debate, secession crisis, and political and military issues related to Missouri. Although full copies of the Missouri Republican are available on the internet, this collection only includes individual articles on the aforementioned subjects. While some of these articles have been transcribed and footnoted, most of them are presented as found on the Internet. The Missouri Republican represented the Democratic Party's view, and the Missouri Democrat (Series 1) represented the Republican Party's view. Therefore, they usually presented opposing views on most topics. Many of the articles presented in Series 5 do not have supporting maps, pictures, and footnotes; however, those found in Series 1 (Missouri Democrat) also support the articles in Series 5 volumes.