About the Fields’ House

The Field House Museum was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2007. It was opened December 18, 1936 as the first historic house museum in St. Louis. The Museum is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and has also been named a City of St. Louis Landmark.

This house was Eugene’s boyhood home, and during their residence here his father Roswell M. Field served as the Attorney who took Dred Scott’s freedom suit into the Federal Courts, leading to the infamous Supreme Court decision in Scott v. Sandford.

The House is owned and operated as a museum by the Eugene Field House Foundation, a charitable organization.

The Mission of the Field House Foundation

Welcome Visitors,

The Trustees of the Field House Foundation are pleased to bring the message of “The Poet of Childhood” to the Internet. They seek to continue the legacy begun in 1936 with the establishment of the Field House Museum by the Board of Education of the City of St. Louis, continued by Landmarks Association from 1967-1980, and operated since 1980 by the Field House Foundation.

The Trustees have as their mission the preservation, maintenance, interpretation, and promotion of the Field House Museum as an historic property and museum, with four objectives.

1. To inform the general public about the life, works, and times of Eugene Field, the “Children’s Poet,” and the creator of the personal column in daily newspapers.
2. To preserve the childhood home of Eugene Field and to display Field family memorabilia and other period artifacts in a nineteenth-century domestic setting.
3. To educate visitors about Eugene Field’s father, Roswell Martin Field, who served as Dred Scott’s attorney when he sued for his family’s freedom in 1853 in a building at Second and Papin Streets, thereby playing a major role in the events leading to the landmark Supreme Court decision affecting all African-Americans.
4. To collect and exhibit toys as an outgrowth of Eugene Field’s abiding interest in collecting children’s toys and dolls.

We welcome you to our Website, where you will find information about the Field family and the historic building in which the Museum is housed, as well as information about the location of the Museum, its hours and programs, and about other services that are provided to the public.

Board of Trustees
Field House Foundation