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
E.g., 2021/12/04
E.g., 2021/12/04

Planet Playtime With Dino O’Dell

Friday Night Family Fun
Friday Night Family Fun resumes – in person – in the Kid Corner of the Plaza Branch with a fun, lively event featuring Kansas City children's musician, educator, and storyteller Dinosaur “Dino” O’Dell. Count monsters, fix spaceships, and swim in peanut better during this interactive presentation, which also will be livestreamed on the Library’s Youth YouTube channel. (Ages 3 and up)
 
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Friday Night Family Fun
Friday, December 3, 2021 - 6:30pm
Plaza Branch
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Literary Alchemist: The Writing Life of Evan S. Connell

Steve Paul, Whitney Terrell
Even outside of his native Kansas City, Evan S. Connell is regarded as a modern master in literary circles. However, until now no one has written extensively about his life and work, including his best-known books Mr. Bridge and Mrs. Bridge.
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Wednesday, December 1, 2021 - 6:30pm

The Shock and Awe of Sarah Bernhardt in Kansas City

Felicia Londré
Missouri Valley Sundays
Mark Twain said there are “bad actresses, fair actresses, good actresses, great actresses – and then there is Sarah Bernhardt.”

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Sunday, November 21, 2021 - 3:00pm

Born in Blackness: Africa, Africans, and the Making of the Modern World

Howard W. French

By most accounts, modern history is rooted in Spain and Columbus and and the discovery of the New World to the west more than five centuries ago. 

That narrative has it wrong, Howard French says. The true origins lie in Europe’s centuries-long eye for, and engagement with, Africa. 

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Wednesday, November 17, 2021 - 6:30pm

City School Fair of Kansas City

Which Kansas City school is best for your child? At the annual City School Fair, families can learn about more about 50 public, private, and charter institutions in the Kansas City Public Schools district serving youth in kindergarten through high school.
 
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City School Fair
Saturday, November 13, 2021 - 10:00am
Central Library

The Cause: The American Revolution and its Discontents, 1773-1783

Joseph J. Ellis, Steve Woolfolk

Pulitzer-Prize winning author Joseph J. Ellis and the Library’s Steve Woolfolk discuss his newest book, The Cause: the American Revolution and its Discontents: 1773-1783. The discussion promises to be as lively as the action-packed scenes in his work.

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Thursday, November 11, 2021 - 6:30pm

The Presidency of George W. Bush

John Robert Greene
Have we been too hard on George W. Bush? 

Drawing in part from a raft of newly available archival records, noted historian John Robert Greene has taken perhaps the most complete account to date of our 43rd president’s eight years in office. And he argues that scholars and other historians have too hastily judged it a complete failure. 

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Tuesday, November 9, 2021 - 6:30pm

Girly Drinks

Mallory O’Meara, Kaite Stover
Author Mallory O’Meara joins the Library’s Kaite Stover in a discussion of O’Meara’s new book Girly Drinks: A World History of Women and Alcohol. They examine 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.
 
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Thursday, November 4, 2021 - 6:30pm

Steamboat Disasters of the Lower Missouri River

Vicki Berger Erwin, James W. Erwin
Missouri Valley Sundays

The lower Missouri River was a veritable steamboat graveyard in the 19th century as more than 300 vessels ended up at the bottom of the Big Muddy. The steamers were technological marvels of the day with long, wide, flat hulls and high-pressure engines, allowing for greater speeds on the water even when fully loaded with goods and passengers.

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Sunday, October 31, 2021 - 3:00pm

I Keep Trying to Catch His Eye

Ivan Maisel
What none of us want to so much as think about, Ivan Maisel and his family endured six years ago. Not long after his 21st birthday, without a signal that anything was seriously wrong, his son Max died by suicide – an act, and most profoundly a loss, that Maisel says “devastated our lives.” 

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Wednesday, October 27, 2021 - 6:30pm

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