John Hoover on A Nation, A City, & Its First Library: Americana as a Way of Life at the St. Louis Mercantile Library for 175 Years

June Evening Program

The Caxton Club and St. Louis Mercantile Library present this program.

John Neal Hoover

Join us for a presentation by the Mercantile Library's Executive Director, John Hoover, as he discusses his favorite items from the exhibition catalogue, A Nation, A City, & Its First Library.

A Nation, A City, and Its First Library: Americana as a Way of Life at the St. Louis Mercantile Library for 175 Years marks an important anniversary for the oldest library founded west of the Mississippi River in 1846, and for the oldest cultural institution of any kind in the historic city of St. Louis. This catalogue and its accompanying exhibition look at the events, the men and women, and the collections of the Mercantile in a cohesive way; often national events, Library leaders and patrons, and the collections preserved here are closely linked. Today, the Library thrives on the urban campus of the University of Missouri – St. Louis, building new, diverse collections in the historic times in which Americans live, just as the Mercantile did when it was founded. This is the story of how Americana became forged at the core and in the heart of a great institution.

John Neal Hoover, the Executive Director of the St. Louis Mercantile Library Association, has worked at the Mercantile since 1983. He holds advanced degrees from the University of Missouri—Columbia, and Southern Illinois University, and his alma mater is Northwestern University.

Buy the catalogue

• Full-color, hard bound with dust jacket

• Dimensions: 9- 1/2 " x 12 "

• 257 pages

• $45 including tax and shipping