MISSOURI HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Jody Sowell, PhD, appointed President
Currently the Managing Director of Public History for MHS, Dr. Sowell joined MHS in 2006 as an oral historian and served as Director of Exhibitions and Research before becoming the Managing Director of Public History in 2019.
As Director of Exhibitions and Research he was instrumental in the Missouri Historical Society’s decision to develop more exhibits in-house that led to some of the highest attendance years in MHS history. In his six years as Director of Exhibitions, the Missouri History Museum opened 8 of the 10 most visited exhibits in its more-than-100-year history. including 250 in 250, #1 in Civil Rights: The African American Freedom Struggle in St. Louis, The Louisiana Purchase, and A Walk in 1875 St. Louis. Sowell also oversaw the development of the Missouri History Museum’s first permanent exhibit for kids, the History Clubhouse, which won an Award of Merit from the American Association of State and Local History in 2016. Sowell also managed the team that created MHS’s first feature-length documentary, Show Me 66: Main Street Through Missouri, which won a regional Emmy.
Prior to joining the Missouri Historical Society, Sowell worked in journalism as a reporter at the Dallas Morning News, an assistant professor at the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism and a news editor for the Columbia Missourian. A native of Memphis, Tennessee, Sowell holds a Doctor of Philosophy in American Studies from Saint Louis University, a Master of Arts in Journalism from the University of Missouri and a Bachelor of Arts from Southern Methodist University.