Jo Allison is my pen name for my fiction writing, and, because this historical portrait is an outgrowth of that writing, I use it here.

 

I started in 2000 collecting details of St. Louis history for purposes of a series of murder mysteries I was writing. Those stories were abandoned for a number of years as I got busier in my day job. Now, I am looking at them once again and considering a push to publication.  However, in doing that, I realized what an interesting historical picture I have collected. This site shares that picture with folks interested in St. Louis of a hundred years ago. 

 

So, what credentials do I have for providing historical knowledge? 

 

Along the way, I needed to continue to produce research as well as do administrative work in my job—my “position” as an early 20th century St. Louisan would have said. So, relatively late in my academic career, I turned out two case-study articles, one on the fight for suffrage in St. Louis, leading up to victory in 1919-20, and the other on the immediate impact of woman suffrage in St. Louis in 1920-28. You can find a reference to those economic history articles at left, if you’re interested.  Neither is dauntingly academic. 

 

The other answer is “none.” I have simply done the work, spending hours in libraries and online, trying to complete the picture. Anyone could do it. I’m simply someone who has done so.

 

For more information on Jo Allison and the books she is writing, viist her personal website, joallisonauthor.com.