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. 

Signature programming lineup

  Missouri Valley Sundays

Osage Women and Empire: Gender and Power
Sunday, March 6, 2022   |   3 p.m.
Tai S. Edwards

In a discussion of her book Osage Women and Empire, Johnson County Community College historian Tai S. Edwards examines the vast, 18th-century Osage empire and the vital role of tribal women in building and maintaining it. All aspects of life, including hunting and war, involved both sexes. 

Details | RSVP

The Agitators: Three Friends Who Fought for Abolition and Women's Rights
Tuesday, March 15, 2022   |   6 p.m.
Dorothy Wickenden

Dorothy Wickenden, executive editor of The New Yorker, recounts the lives and historical contributions of three key figures in the abolitionist and women’s rights movements of the 19th century – Harriet Tubman, Frances Seward, and Martha Coffin Wright – in a discussion of her new book The Agitators. 

Details | RSVP

Archived Events

Missouri Valley Sundays
Brides on the Santa Fe Trail
March 14, 2021  | Joy L. Poole

In commemoration of the bicentennial anniversary of the Santa Fe Trail, historian Joy L. Poole examined 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. 

Details | Watch on Youtube

When Women Invented Television
March 24, 2021   |   Jennifer Armstrong

In a discussion of her 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 recounted the careers and contributions of four women who overcame sexism, racism, and red-scare McCarthyism to help shape the TV industry we know today.

Details | Watch on Youtube
 

Girly Drinks
November 4, 2021   |   Mallory O'Meara, Kaite Stover

Author Mallory O’Meara joined the Library’s Kaite Stover in a discussion of O’Meara’s new book Girly Drinks: A World History of Women and Alcohol. They examined the hidden yet substantial influence that women have had on the world’s alcohol culture – from production to distribution to consumption, from Cleopatra to Thomas Jefferson’s wife Martha to today’s female distillery owners, brewmasters, and award-winning bartenders.

Details | Watch on Youtube | FYI Book Club Spotlight
 

Watch video presentations of past programs from the Library’s 2020 19th Amendment Centennial series.

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.  

Details | Watch on Youtube

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.  

Details | Watch on Youtube

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.  

Details | Watch on Youtube