DATE: ca. 19th century - 20th century
CREATOR: Collected by John Hoover
EXTENT: Approximately 100 linear feet.
SCOPE: The collection includes agricultural and horticultural publications consisting of journals, newspapers, pamphlets, long runs of rare periodicals, and broadsides, including:
- Breeder's Gazette
- American Agriculturist
- National Farm Journal
- The Prairie Farmer
- Ozark Countryman
- South and West
- Rural New Yorker
- Farm and Home
- Farmer's Wife
- Household
- Farm Life.
This collection also includes early American seed catalogs, with a focus on Missouri and the Midwest, farm implement catalogs, and other rural trade catalogs.
PROVENANCE: Established in 1987 by the Director of the Mercantile Library, this collection was assembled from collections which originated primarily in the donor's native southern Illinois.
The collection has grown through subsequent gifts and purchases of such items as additional farming and commodities journals from the nineteenth century, rural newspapers, and horticultural catalogs, and it is supported by related primary and secondary holdings long present in the Mercantile Library on agriculture, cooking and health, gardening, and early American women's studies and feminist issues which have long been known to be documented in such publications.
ACCESS: This is collection M-105. This collection is available for on-site use only in the Rare Book and Manuscripts Reading Room. Some of the collection may be photocopied, digitally scanned or photographed, depending on condition. Researchers are advised to call ahead concerning changes in hours due to University intersessions and holidays. The St. Louis Mercantile Library is located on levels one and two of the Thomas Jefferson Library building. More information about conducting research with the archival collections of the Library, including current building hours and reading room policies, can be found on our Research page.
RESTRICTIONS: None
Preferred Citation note: The preferred citation for this collection is “From the Special Collections of the St. Louis Mercantile Library at the University of Missouri – St. Louis.”
