Big Muddy Speaker Series presents:

This preview presentation on the upcoming Missouri History Museum exhibit, The Mighty Mississippi, helps put in context where we are headed by looking at the deep history of where civilization has been in the Middle Mississippi River Valley. Many achievements, as well as social and environmental costs, are highlighted in this update on three years of research and preparation for this major 2019-2021 show.

Our individual lives are too short to get a big picture of the change that has occurred at the confluence of the Middle Mississippi’s major rivers, but looking at chapters in the epic story of human habitation here provides a striking perspective. From the Ohio up to the Missouri, beyond to the Illinois and with many smaller tributaries in between, the channel described as the Mississippi has enabled people to survive and prosper. And yet we’ve changed the watershed just as it has changed us.

Starting about a thousand years ago, the Mississippian period culture rose and then fell with the fortunes of the river environment and its exploited treasures. Afterwards, the European cultures conquered and colonized, extracting and reshaping the watershed and the people who preceded them with a zeal driven by fashion and empire. But the Industrial Age most dramatically transformed this world, altering river flow and habitat as the human population exploded, when exploitation of the river world mirrored in some ways how people exploited one another.

Now, we live in a successor era which must face questions about the survival of all life as we know it, and we can recognize our survival, success, and enjoyment of life is as dependent on the river system and its biodiversity as they are on us. Our future depends on how we manage it and our own behavior.

Come get a peek of how the Missouri History Museum will exhibit our intriguing history with one of the world’s greatest watersheds in the upcoming exhibit, The Mighty Mississippi.