 The "Writer’s Club" expressed interest in "folksongs and literary material to be found in Missouri," as reported in the "M.S.U.Independent" on March 6, 1903.The State Historical Society of Missouri had recently opened its library in what is now Jesse Hall, and the cultural moment had arrived for the development of a new academic field which would blend the materials and methods of many traditional disciplines – philology, literature and history—as well as connecting to the newer fields of sociology and anthropology.