From its first exhibited painting—a prairie scene by Charles Deas lent to the Library in 1846—the St. Louis Mercantile Library has collected and displayed images of the American landscape. Through the intervening centuries, St. Louis citizens and artists have remained focused on the this genre of painting; by the 1880s a landscape painting movement had formed in St. Louis that would become one of the city’s most distinctive cultural features. Works by artists as diverse in style as Oscar Berninghaus and Fred Conway documented not only the nation’s changing geography, but also the attitudes, tastes and aesthetic aspirations of the society for which they were created. This major reinstallation of the Mercantile Library’s permanent collection celebrates the St. Louis artists who remain a treasured part of the city’s cultural heritage.

This focused exhibition presents a selection of rare and important photographs that documented the exploration of the American West, including works by Edward Curtis and Alexander Gardner, and Yosemite photographs issued by Thomas Houseworth and Company.

Lee Buchsbaum and Dan Overturf create powerful photographic portraits of the largely unseen workers whose daily efforts make our lives possible. From the coal miners who supply the fuel to create electricity to the railroad and waterways workers who keep goods and people moving across the country, these laborers provide an essential service to the nation, yet their presence is too rarely acknowledged. This exhibition features large scale and panoramic photographs of these invaluable individuals and allows the viewer a rare glimpse into their daily lives.

Indiana born Edwin Fulwider embraced the beauty, dynamism and humor of the rail throughout his artistic career. This focused exhibition of three oil paintings and twenty prints by Fulwider and his contemporaries introduces the most recent additions to the Barriger Library’s archive of visual documentation of life on the rails.

Previously known as Sepoy’s Mutiny, the 1857 uprising in India constituted, in fact, that nation’s first war of independence. By uniting people from all walks of life and religious beliefs, the protest against British violation of Indian religious rights can be seen as the greatest armed challenge to colonial rule during the entire course of the nineteenth century. This exhibition presents photographic reproductions of nineteenth century prints illustrating the key events in this pivotal moment of Indian history.