Did you know that our Alliance Française turns 125 this year? C’est vrai! The Alliance Française de St. Louis was founded in 1901, and this year, we will be celebrating our 125th anniversary with a special event at the Missouri Athletic Club on October 9, 2026. More details will be coming soon, but for now, just mark your calendars and don’t make any other plans for that Friday!
But wait - didn’t we just celebrate our 60th anniversary?
You may be surprised to hear that we’re celebrating our 125th anniversary when not two years ago, we celebrated our 60th. No, we didn’t time-travel! But our Alliance Française actually has two important anniversaries. The first is when our organization, the Alliance Française de St. Louis, was founded in 1901. The Alliance Française de St. Louis started as more of a social club, and it wasn’t until a half-century later that our school as we know it today was founded in 1964 by Estelle Powers.
Fun facts about 1901, the year our Alliance Française was founded
The Commonwealth of Australia was officially established on January 1
Queen Victoria passed away on January 22 after reigning for nearly 64 years, signaling the end of the Victorian era
Theodore Roosevelt became the youngest president in history at age 42 after the assassination of William McKinley.
The very first Nobel Prizes were awarded, five years after the death of Alfred Nobel
British engineer Hubert Cecil Booth patented the first powered vacuum cleaner, which was a giant, horse-drawn combustion engine that sat outside a house.
Guglielmo Marconi received the first transatlantic radio signal, the letter “S” in Morse code, sent from England to Newfoundland
19-year-old Pablo Picasso had his first-ever major exhibition in Paris in 1901 at a gallery on the Rue Lafitte.
Walt Disney was born in Chicago on December 5
The average annual U.S. income was between $400 and $500
The average price for a gallon of gas was 10 cents
The life expectancy for men born in 1901 was 47.6 years, for women it was 50.6 years.
The Missouri Athletic Club, our venue for this event, was founded 2 years later—in 1903.