UNCOVE RING THE PAST
TALL AND LEAN, WITH LONG DREADS, GWEN MOORE IS WEARING BLACK LEATHER PANTS WITH A WHITE SHIRT AND LONG BLACK JACKET. HER APPEARANCE IS AS DRAMATIC AS HER MISSOURI HISTORY MUSEUM EXHIBITS. SHE CARRIES KEYS TO THE BASEMENT STOREROOMS AT THE MISSOURI HISTORICAL SOCIETY’S LIBRARY & RESEARCH CENTER, WHERE SHE UNLOCKS A HEAVY STEEL DOOR TO REVEAL A SPACE THE SIZE OF A SMALL CONDO. IT’S OPERATING-ROOM CLEAN-LIGHT-, TEMPERATURE-, AND HUMIDITY- CONTROLLED-AND CONSTANTLY MONITORED. THE ROOM IS FILLED WITH ROWS OF TALL GRAY STEEL CABINETS.
Guarding the entrance is a mannequin wearing an antebellum-era hoop skirt. “Our biggest collection is in textiles, mostly women’s things, ” says Moore. She unlocks a cabinet, inserts the key into an upper drawer, and gently folds back acid-free paper. An exquisite black lace Victorian mourning dress lies as if in a coffin.
Moore has been delving into these storerooms for decades. As curator of Urban Landscape and Community Identity, she preserves, assembles, and tells stories through historic artifacts. The story she told five years ago in the exhibit #1 in Civil surprised St. Louisans. Some 250,000 visitors to the Missouri History Museum discovered this city has led America in civil rights since 1819, when free Blacks and whites rallied against the territory entering the union as a slave state. The exhibit won awards from the American Association for State and Local History, Washington University Brown School, and the University of Missouri-St. Louis.
