Signature Event Archive

Search the Signature Event Archive to discover past Library events. Watch videos, hear speaker interviews, and listen to audio recordings of previous presentations. Search by keyword (event title, subject, or presenter name), location or by date range.
Signature Event Video Video Signature Event Audio Audio Signature Event Interview Interviews
E.g., 2020/01/23
E.g., 2020/01/23

Ghetto Uprising: The Untold Story

Shelly M. Cline

Facing overwhelming obstacles, Jews and others in occupied Europe resisted Nazi rule in a variety of ways during World War II. Some instigated uprisings. Others worked more quietly to preserve community and create records of their experiences.

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The Library and the Midwest Center for Holocaust Education launch a series of films exploring Jewish and other resistance to Nazi rule during World War II with Ghetto Uprising: The Untold Story. The 2017 documentary (61 min., Hebrew and English with English subtitles) spotlights an underrecognized group of fighters in the Warsaw Uprising of 1943. Historian Shelly Cline leads a short Q&A session after the screening.
Wednesday, January 22, 2020 6:30 pm
Plaza Branch
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StoneLion Puppet Theatre: Snow

Friday Night Family Fun
This event has been rescheduled for February 7 due to the inclement weather forecast.
 
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Kansas City’s StoneLion Puppet Theatre offers a wintery, musical treat. Dance the Penguin Shuffle, watch our ice-skating mouse, bounce along with Frosty the Snowman … and let it snow. Appropriate for all ages.
Friday, January 17, 2020 6:30 pm
Plaza Branch
Event Canceled

Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America

Marcia Chatelain

As the civil rights movement waned in the 1960s and early ’70s, federal programs promoted a new means of racial equality: the franchising of McDonald’s and other fast-food restaurants by African Americans in their own neighborhoods.

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In a discussion of her new book Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America, Georgetown University professor, historian, and author Marcia Chatelain examines the upside – and considerable downside – of the proliferation of black-owned McDonald’s and other fast-food franchises in African American neighborhoods.
Tuesday, January 14, 2020 6:30 pm
Reception: 
6 pm
Plaza Branch
Event Audio

From Page to Screen: Wild

Lori Hoodenpyle, Beck Ireland, Kaite Stover
Searching the Psyche Through Cinema

Sigmund Freud, the celebrated father of psychoanalysis, often referenced literature and theater in his analytic theory. The annual Searching the Psyche Through Cinema series looks similarly to the arts to illuminate our understanding of ourselves, returning in January and February with a selection of films adapted from books. A discussion follows each screening.

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This year’s Searching the Psyche Through Cinema series of screenings and discussions opens with the film adaptation (2014; R) of Cheryl Strayed’s best-selling memoir Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail. It follows her impulsive – and ultimately healing – decision in the wake of a broken marriage and her mother’s death to hike more than 1,000 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail alone.
Sunday, January 12, 2020 1:30 pm
Reception: 
Following
Plaza Branch
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Mansion on a Hill: The Story of The Willows Maternity Sanitarium and the Adoption Hub of America

KelLee Parr
Missouri Valley Sundays

Women who were pregnant and unmarried in the early 1900s faced limited options and societal scorn. Many chose, or were sent, to deliver their babies and give them up for adoption in special facilities for unwed mothers—among them, The Willows Maternity Sanitarium in Kansas City.

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Author KelLee Parr looks back at The Willows Maternity Sanitarium in Kansas City, one of the facilities that once provided a haven for “unfortunate” unwed pregnant women and adoption services for their newborns, in a discussion of his new book Mansion on a Hill. Parr’s grandmother was among the thousands of infants adopted through The Willows during its 64 years of operation, ending in 1969.
Sunday, January 5, 2020 2:00 pm
Central Library
Event Audio

The Defense of St. Vith: Crossroads in the Battle of the Bulge

Mark Gerges

Just before dawn on December 16, 1944, American forces in the Ardennes forests of Belgium and Luxemburg were surprised by the roar of German tanks and artillery, heralding Adolf Hitler’s final offensive on World War II’s Western Front. The Battle of the Bulge would last six brutal weeks and end in the U.S. Army’s greatest victory.

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Military historian Mark Gerges of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College discusses the inspiring response by American troops in the German-instigated Battle of the Bulge, including the 7th Armored Division’s defense of the critical crossroads town of St. Vith.
Tuesday, December 17, 2019 6:30 pm
Reception: 
6 pm
Central Library
Event Audio

Paper Moon

Erin Hamer-Beck
Girlhood and Cinema Series

***EVENT CANCELED due to inclement weather.***

 

The Girlhood and Cinema film series continues showcasing the diverse roles of girls as cinematic storytellers with Peter Bogdanovich’s masterful period picture Paper Moon (1973; PG). Set in Depression-era Missouri and Kansas, it’s the story of a young con artist (then-10-year-old Tatum O’Neal) and her dad (real-life father Ryan O’Neal) as they build a grifting career. Tatum won an Oscar in her first film role. The University of Missouri-Kansas City’s Erin Hamer-Beck leads a subsequent discussion.

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The Library concludes its four-month film series showcasing the diverse roles of girls as cinematic storytellers, screening Peter Bogdanovich’s masterful period picture Paper Moon (1973; PG). The University of Missouri-Kansas City’s Erin Hamer-Beck leads a subsequent discussion.
Sunday, December 15, 2019 1:30 pm
Plaza Branch
Event Canceled

Plaza Branch Holiday Festival

Start the holiday season with a festival at the Library, overlooking the beautiful Plaza lights. Listen to live music while enjoying cookies and a hot chocolate bar. Kids can play holiday-themed games and listen to stories, and everyone can make an ornament to take home. 

Oh, and Santa drops in.

Appropriate for all ages.

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Start the holiday season with a festival at the Library, overlooking the beautiful Plaza lights. Listen to live music while enjoying cookies and a hot chocolate bar. Kids can play holiday-themed games and listen to stories, all can make an ornament to take home – oh, and Santa drops in. For all ages.
Friday, December 13, 2019 6:00 pm
Plaza Branch

A Guest of the Reich

Peter Finn
An heiress who preferred big-game hunting to debutante balls, Gertrude “Gertie” Legendre was interesting enough to be an inspiration for a 1928 Broadway play (Holiday) that was twice adapted into movies. And that was before she joined the Office of Strategic Services, the forerunner to the CIA, and was captured behind enemy lines during World War II.

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In a discussion of his new book A Guest of the Reich: The Story of American Heiress Gertrude Legendre's Dramatic Captivity and Escape from Nazi Germany, The Washington Post’s Peter Finn recounts the extraordinary story of the American heiress who joined the Office of Strategic Services (the forerunner to the CIA) and was seized behind enemy lines during World War II.
Thursday, December 12, 2019 6:30 pm
Plaza Branch
Event AudioEvent Videos

And the Spirit Moved Them

Helen LaKelly Hunt
Author and activist Helen LaKelly Hunt recalls the event that launched the women’s rights movement in our country – the first Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women in New York in 1837 – in a discussion of her book And the Spirit Moved Them: The Lost Radical History of America's First Feminists.
 
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Author and activist Helen LaKelly Hunt recalls the event that launched the women’s rights movement in our country – the first Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women in New York in 1837 – in a discussion of her book And the Spirit Moved Them.
Wednesday, December 11, 2019 6:30 pm
Reception: 
6 pm
Plaza Branch
Event Audio

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