French St. Louis

Jay Gitlin is a senior lecturer in history at Yale University. He is the author of The Bourgeois Frontier: French Towns, French Traders, and American Expansion. Robert Michael Morrissey is an associate professor of history at the University of Illinois. He is the author of Empire by Collaboration: Indians, Colonists, and Governments in Colonial Illinois Country. Peter J. Kastor is Samuel K. Eddy Professor and a professor of history at Washington University in St. Louis. He is the author of William Clark’s World: Describing America in an Age of Unknowns.

“One of the most refreshing and illuminating aspects of this collection is the inclusion of women not merely as individual characters but as intrinsic parts of the history and historiography. . . . Patricia Cleary’s chapter on fashion is exemplary in portraying St. Louis’s rich economic, political, and cultural history and its connections to far-flung places. . . . Delightful and deeply insightful. Its chapters speak to one another, creating a collection that holds together surprisingly well. One could read the book from cover to cover, finding connections.”-Kathleen DuVal, Missouri Historical Review “This meticulously edited collection reframes the ongoing conversation on the often-confusing history of a special urban landscape-St. Louis-broadening its diverse meaning and multicultural impact through a model lens by which all early American cities may be profitably studied.”-John Neal Hoover, author of A Nation, a City, and Its First Library: Americana at the St. Louis Mercantile Library for 175 Years "[French St. Louis] can foster a better understanding of our present and our future for all of us."-Missouri Life "French St. Louis is an entertaining, well-researched, and original collection of perspectives on a long-overlooked time and place that no historian can again call "neglected," let alone insignificant."-Eric Sandweiss, Indiana Magazine of History "This volume is a commendable venture to tell the French story of the founding of interior America. The project's inception during the sestercentennial year of St. Louis's founding yielded fruitful results with the recent publication of this book. A valuable read for American historians."-Dan Shannon, Denver Posse of Westerners

• List of IllustrationsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: A French City in North AmericaJay Gitlin, Robert Michael Morrissey, and Peter J. KastorPart 1. Fashioning a Colonial Place: St. Louis between Empire and Frontier1. Empire by Collaboration: St. Louis, the Illinois Country, and the French Colonial EmpireRobert Michael Morrissey2. Between Obligation and Opportunity: St. Louis, Women, and Transcolonial Networks, 1764–1800Robert Englebert3. The Capital of St. Louis: From Indian Trade to American Territory, 1764–1825J. Frederick Fausz4. Fashioning Identities on the Frontier: Clothing, Culture, and Choice in Early St. LouisPatricia ClearyPart 2. St. Louis and New Orleans: A Regional Perspective5. You Are Who You Trade With: Why Antebellum St. Louis Industrialized and New Orleans Didn’tLawrence N. Powell6. The Creole Frontier: Free People of Color in St. Louis and along the French Mississippi Corridor, 1800–1870Andrew N. WegmannPart 3. Visualizing Place: New Sources and Resources for Telling the Story of St. Louis7. Visualizing Early St. LouisRobert J. Moore Jr.8. The View from Upper Louisiana: Pierre-ClÉment de Laussat’s Concerns and Contacts, 1803–1804John H. LawrencePart 4. Maintaining the French Connection of St. Louis9. Louis Cortambert and l’Esprit franÇais in St. Louis in 1854Anne Juneau Craver10. The French Presence in St. Louis TodayLionel CuillÉConclusion: The Founding and Lasting Significance of St. LouisJay GitlinContributorsIndex