Tune in to online Library events that explore the role of women in our culture from the history of Westward Expansion through contemporary technology and society.
All Women's History Month Resources | Books & Film Suggestions | Women Who Made History Coloring Books
Signature programming lineup
Missouri Valley Sundays
Brides on the Santa Fe Trail
Sunday, March 14, 2021 | 3 p.m.
Joy L. Poole
In commemoration of the bicentennial anniversary of the Santa Fe Trail, historian Joy L. Poole examines the stories of five wives who traveled the Trail between 1830 and 1870. These women recorded their adventures in memoirs, diaries, or letters sent back home. Drawing from the firsthand accounts, Poole introduces these devoted frontier brides, who vowed to take a husband for better or for worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, ‘til death they do part – no matter how long and arduous the journey before them. This Missouri Valley Sundays program is co-presented by the Kansas City Athenaeum in celebration of Women’s History Month.
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Indie Lens Pop-Up Film Series
Coded Bias
Thursday, March 18, 2021 | 6 p.m.
Joy Buolamwini, Shalini Kantayya
While conducting research on facial recognition technology at the MIT Media Lab, Ghanaian-born Joy Buolamwini was startled to discover that it failed to detect women or dark-skinned faces with accuracy. Machine-learning algorithms designed to eliminate bias were only as unbiased as the humans and historical data behind them. The documentary Coded Bias, the latest online installment of the Indie Lens Pop-Up cinema initiative, chronicles the dramatic journey that followed. The 90-minute film is screened, and Buolamwini and director and producer Shalini Kantayya headline a live-chat discussion that follows.
When Women Invented Television
Wednesday, March 24, 2021 | 6:30 p.m.
Jennifer Armstrong
In a discussion of her newly released book When Women Invented Television: The Untold Story of the Female Powerhouses Who Pioneered the Way We Watch Today, author and TV cultural critic Jennifer Keishin Armstrong recounts the careers and contributions of four women who overcame sexism, racism, and red-scare McCarthyism to help shape the TV industry we know today.
Archived Events
Watch video presentations of past programs from the Library’s 2020 19th Amendment Centennial series.
Qualified Rights: Women’s Suffrage, Citizenship, and the 19th Amendment Reconsidered
August 18, 2020 | Saje Mathieu
One hundred years ago, women won their fight for the right to vote – though not all of them. University of Minnesota historian Sarah-Jane (Saje) Mathieu discussed the pitfalls, as well as the pinnacles, accompanying the 19th Amendment’s promise.
August 27, 2020 | Kimberly Hamlin
Award-winning historian and author Kimberly Hamlin examined the life and immense influence of the “Harriet Beecher Stowe of Fallen Women” in a video discussion of her book Free Thinker: Sex, Suffrage, and the Extraordinary Life of Helen Hamilton Gardener.
August 29, 2020 | Julie Chi-hy Suk, Carol Jenkins, Carrie N. Baker, Pat Spearman, Kate Kelly, Marco Gonzalez, Erica Benson
A distinguished panel of officials, experts, and ERA activists assessed the decades-long effort to enact what would be the 28th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, enshrining the principle of gender equality in our founding charter.