Harry S Truman (1884–1972) has been the only native-born Missourian to serve as US president or vice president. Elected US senator in 1932, Truman became Franklin D. Roosevelt's vice-presidential running mate in 1944 and succeeded to the presidency upon Roosevelt's death on 12 April 1945. The "man from Independence"—whose tenure in office spanned the end of World War II, the inauguration of the Marshall Plan to aid European economic recovery, and the beginning of the Korean conflict—was elected to the presidency in his own right in 1948, defeating Republican Thomas E. Dewey in one of the most surprising upsets in US political history. Charles Evans Whittaker (b.Kansas, 1901–73) was a federal district and appeals court judge in Missouri before his appointment as Supreme Court associate justice in 1957. Among the state's outstanding US military leaders are Generals John J. Pershing (1860–1948) and Omar Bradley (1893–1981).
Other notable federal officeholders from Missouri include Edward Bates (b.Virginia, 1793–1869), Abraham Lincoln's attorney general and the first cabinet official to be chosen from a state west of the Mississippi River; Montgomery Blair (b.Kentucky, 1813–83), postmaster general in Lincoln's cabinet; and Norman Jay Colman (b.New York, 1827–1911), the first secretary of agriculture. Missouri's best-known senator was Thomas Hart Benton (b.North Carolina, 1782–1858), who championed the interests of Missouri and the West for 30 years. Other well-known federal legislators include Francis P. Blair, Jr. (b.Kentucky, 1821–75), antislavery congressman, pro-Union leader during the Civil War, and Democratic vice-presidential nominee in 1868; Benjamin Gratz Brown (b.Kentucky, 1826–85), senator from 1863 to 1867 and later governor of the state and Republican vice-presidential nominee (1872); Carl Schurz (b.Germany, 1829–1906), senator from 1869 to 1875 and subsequently US secretary of the interior, as well as a journalist and Union military leader; William H. Hatch (b.Kentucky, 1833–96), sponsor of much agricultural legislation as a US representative from 1879 to 1895; Richard P. Bland (b.Kentucky, 1835–99), leader of the free-silver bloc in the US House of Representatives; James Beauchamp "Champ" Clark (b.Kentucky, 1850–1921), speaker of the House from 1911 to 1919; W. Stuart Symington (b.Massachusetts, 1901–88), senator from 1953 to 1977 and earlier the nation's first secretary of the Air Force; and Thomas F. Eagleton (b.1929), senator since 1969 and, briefly, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee in 1972, until publicity about his having received electroshock treatment for depression forced him off the ticket. (Eagleton announced in 1984 that he would not seek reelection to the Senate in 1986.)
Outstanding figures in Missouri history include two pioneering fur traders: William Henry Ashley (b.Virginia, 1778–1838), who later became a US representative, and Manuel Lisa (b.Louisiana, 1772–1820), who helped establish trade relations with the Indians. Meriwether Lewis (b.Virginia, 1774–1809) and William Clark (b.Virginia, 1770–1838) explored Missouri and the West during 1804–6; Lewis later served as governor of Louisiana Territory, with headquarters at St. Louis, and Clark was governor of Missouri Territory from 1813 to 1821. Dred Scott (b.Virginia, 1795–1858), a slave owned by a Missourian, figured in a Supreme Court decision that set the stage for the Civil War. Missourians with unsavory reputations include such desperadoes as Jesse James (1847–82), his brother Frank (1843–1915), and Cole Younger (1844–1916), also a member of the James gang. Another well-known native was Kansas City's political boss, Thomas Joseph Pendergast (1872–1945), a power among Missouri Democrats until convicted of income tax evasion in 1939 and sent to Leavenworth prison.
Among notable Missouri educators were William Torrey Harris (b.Connecticut, 1835–1909), superintendent of St. Louis public schools, US commissioner of education, and an authority on Hegelian philosophy; James Milton Turney (1840–1915), who helped establish Lincoln University for blacks at Jefferson City; and Susan Elizabeth Blow (1843–1916), cofounder with Harris of the first US public kindergarten at St. Louis in 1873. Distinguished scientists include agricultural chemist George Washington Carver (1864–1943), astronomers Harlow Shapley (1885–1972) and Edwin P. Hubble (1889–1953), Nobel Prizewinning nuclear physicist Arthur Holly Compton (b.Ohio, 1892–1962), and mathematician-cyberneticist Norbert Wiener (1894–1964). Engineer and inventor James Buchanan Eads (b.Indiana, 1820–87) supervised construction during 1867–74 of the St. Louis bridge that bears his name. Charles A. Lindbergh (b.Michigan 1902–74) was a pilot and aviation instructor in the St. Louis area during the 1920s before wining worldwide acclaim for his solo New York-Paris flight.
Prominent Missouri businessmen include brewer Adolphus Busch (b.Germany, 1839–1913); William Rockhill Nelson (b.Indiana, 1847–1915), who founded the Kansas City Star (1880); Joseph Pulitzer (b.Hungary, 1847–1911), who merged two failed newspapers to establish the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (1878) and later endowed the journalism and literary prizes that bear his name; and James Cash Penney (1875–1971), founder of the J. C. Penney Co. Noteworthy journalists from Missouri include newspaper and magazine editor William M. Reedy (1862–1920), newspaper reporter Herbert Bayard Swope (1882–1958), and television newscaster Walter Cronkite (b.1916). Other distinguished Missourians include theologian Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971), civil rights leader Roy Wilkins (1901–81), and medical missionary Thomas Dooley (1927–61).
Missouri's most popular author is Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835–1910), whose Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) evoke his boyhood in Hannibal. Novelist Harold Bell Wright (b.New York, 1872–1944) wrote about the people of the Ozarks; Robert Heinlein (1907–88) is a noted writer of science fiction, and William S. Burroughs (1914–97) an experimental novelist. Poet-critic T(homas) S(tearns) Eliot (1888–1965), awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1948, was born in St. Louis but became a British subject in 1927. Other Missouri-born poets include Sara Teasdale (1884–1933), Marianne Moore (1887–1972), and Langston Hughes (1902–67). Popular novelist and playwright Rupert Hughes (1872–1956) was a Missouri native, as was Zoe Akins (1886–1958), a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright.
Distinguished painters who lived in Missouri include George Caleb Bingham (b.Virginia, 1811–79), who also served in several state offices; James Carroll Beckwith (1852–1917); and Thomas Hart Benton (1889–1975), the grandnephew and namesake of the state's famous political leader. Among the state's important musicians are ragtime pianist-composers Scott Joplin (b.Texas, 1868–1917) and John William "Blind" Boone (1864–1927); W(illiam) C(hristopher) Handy (b.Alabama, 1873–1958), composer of "St. Louis Blues," "Beale Street Blues," and other classics; composer-critic Virgil Thomson (1896–1989), known for his operatic collaborations with Gertrude Stein; jazzman Coleman Hawkins (1907–69); and popular songwriter Burt Bacharach (b.1929). Photographer Walker Evans (1903–75) was a St. Louis native.
Missouri-born entertainers include actors Wallace Beery, (1889–1949), Vincent Price (1911–93), and Edward Asner (b.1929); actresses Jean Harlow (Harlean Carpenter, 1911–37), Jane Wyman (b.1914), Betty Grable (1916–73), and Shelley Winters (b.1922); dancers Sally Rand (1904–79) and Josephine Baker (1906–75); actress-dancer Ginger Rogers (1911–95); film director John Huston (1906–84); and opera stars Helen Traubel (1903–72), Gladys Swarthout (1904–69), and Grace Bumbry (b.1937). In popular music, the state's most widely known singersongwriter is Charles "Chuck" Berry (b.California, 1926), whose works had a powerful influence on the development of rock'n' roll.
St. Louis Cardinals stars who became Hall of Famers include Jerome Herman "Dizzy" Dean (b.Arkansas, 1911–74), Stanley Frank "Stan the Man" Musial (b.Pennsylvania, 1920), Robert "Bob" Gibson (b.Nebraska, 1935), and Louis "Lou" Brock (b.Arkansas, 1939). Among the native Missourians who achieved stardom in the sports world are baseball manager Charles Dillon "Casey" Stengel (1890–1975), catcher Lawrence Peter "Yogi" Berra (b.1925), sportscaster Joe Garagiola (b.1926), and golfer Tom Watson (b.1949).