About the Author

Lawrence Christensen was born in Glasgow, Montana in 1937, and he grew up in Glasgow, Missouri. He earned a B.S. in education and an M.A. in history from Northeast Missouri State University, now Truman State University, and in 1972 earned a Ph.D. in History from the University of Missouri–Columbia.

Dr. Christensen taught in elementary, junior high, and high schools in Illinois, Arizona, and Missouri. He taught at the University of Wisconsin at Whitewater before coming to Missouri University of Science and Technology (formerly University of Missouri-Rolla). He retired from Missouri S&T in 2000 and is now Distinguished Teaching Professor of History, Emeritus. His specialities are Missouri history and black America. He has published articles in a variety of journals; co-authored Missouri: The Heart of the Nation, UM-Rolla: A History of MSM/UMR, and A History of Missouri, 1875–1919, Volume 4; and co-edited The Dictionary of Missouri Biography. He served as president of the State Historical Society of Missouri from 1998–2001, and currently serves on the Executive Committee of the State Historical Society of Missouri, from which he received the Distinguished Service Award in 2002.