Previous Special Events

How do restaurant workers live on some of the lowest wages in America? And how do poor working conditions — discriminatory labor practices, exploitation, and unsanitary kitchens — affect the meals that arrive at our restaurant tables?

In Behind the Kitchen Door Saru Jayaraman, co-founder of a national restaurant workers organization, provides a groundbreaking exploration of the political, economic, and moral implications of eating out.

Presented by Michelle Brown

The Kansas City Public Library is hosting Money Smart Month adult programs across all Library locations during April 2013. Topics range from budgeting to investing to effective couponing.

The Library will waive up to $30 in overdue fines and fees for any Kansas City Public Library cardholder who attends one or more of the events.

The six-week America’s Music program is a film and discussion series that looks at popular music from blues to bluegrass, Broadway to rock ‘n’ roll. Each event features films followed by a discussion (and frequently performances) led by UMKC musicologist Andrew Granade.

The Swing Jazz evening features excerpts from Ken Burns’ Jazz: Swing, the Velocity of Celebration (2001) and International Sweethearts of Rhythm (1986), and a discussion with jazz expert Chuck Haddix.

What did Kansas City look like millions of years ago? And what do the rocks below our feet tell us about our region during deep time?

Geologist Richard J. Gentile addresses those questions in a presentation inspired by the exhibit KC|BC, on display through April 26 at the Central Library, and the exhibit Kansas City Millions of Years Ago – Reading the Rocks, a show of digital illustrations and actual fossils at the Box Gallery in Suite 211 of the Commerce Bank Building, 1000 Walnut St.

Damon Talbott examines the legacy of Duncan Hines from his career as a famous restaurant critic to the founding of the line of cake mixes that bear his name.

Through the shifting roles of Hines, Talbott explains how taste is neither an object to acquire nor a state of being to achieve, but instead an ongoing process, a temporary association of things considered “good.”

Taking the old Independence Road through the eastern environs of Kansas City toward Independence, it’s easy to miss some of Kansas City’s richest history. Mt. Washington Park and Cemetery, Fairmount Park, and a host of historic sites in Independence make it a perfect venue to see through the views of old postcards.

Local historian and postcard collector Michael Bushnell presents a series of postcard tours of Kansas City neighborhoods. Bushnell is publisher of The Northeast News, a weekly community newspaper that serves the Historic Northeast area of Kansas City. He is also the author of Historic Postcards of Old Kansas City.

Twenty Films Essential to Cinema Literacy

Think you’re film literate? Not until you’ve experienced the masterpieces of world cinema presented as part of this new series. Former Kansas City Star film critic Robert W. Butler (now a member of the Library’s Public Affairs staff) provides opening and closing remarks.

Get a sample of Wornall House’s upcoming summer camp! Immerse your children in 19th century activities that are sure to inspire a love of history.

Learn about the Pony Express, Native American history, and how to make your own butter.

Activities will be led by Wornall House staff and volunteers. Recommended for ages 6-12.

The Kansas City Star’s Dave Helling and an expert panel discuss whether it is time for control of the Kansas City Police Department to revert from the state back to the city. Participants include former Police Commissioner Karl Zobrist, former Police Chief Jim Corwin, City Councilman Ed Ford, and Steve Glorioso, who led a campaign to change St. Louis’ police governance law.

Abigail Adams, the wife of one president and the mother of a second, was significant not only for her accomplishments as a diarist and letter writer but for the influence she had on successive generations of the Adams family. Scholar Henry Adams, the great-great-great-great-great grandson of Abigail and John Adams, looks at his forbear’s life and writing, especially her often caustic impressions of the Founding Fathers.