Missouri Valley Sundays

Historian Bill Worley discusses the arrival and settlement of French traders in what’s now Kansas City’s West Bottoms area – but then was Indian country – in the latter half of the 19th century. It brought permanent change to the traditional way of life for local Native American tribes.  

Micah W. Kubic, who heads the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas, discusses his book about Freedom, Inc., and its more than half-century history of raising the visibility of issues impacting Kansas City’s black community and helping to elect African-Americans to political office.

Cowboy historian Jim Gray, executive director of the National Drovers Hall of Fame in Ellsworth, Kansas, recalls the early days of ranching and cattle driving and the challenges involved – from abominable weather to stampedes – involved in getting beef from the trail to your plate.

In a discussion of his book For All Children Everywhere, a comprehensive history of Kansas City’s renowned Children’s Mercy hospital, Thomas McCormally walks through the facility’s founding by two sisters and its growth through more than a century of challenges.

Retired FBI agent William Ouseley joins Jonathan Bender, an editor for KCPT - Kansas City PBS, in discussing Kansas City’s gangland past and the investigative techniques used by law officers and local journalists to expose the illicit activities.

Artist and filmmaker Brian Hawkins examines our state’s mostly east-side French Creole community – specifically its rich collection of folktales – in a discussion of his work on the documentary Asiminier: Folklore of the Missouri French Creoles.

Preservationist Bradley Wolf, KC’s historic preservation officer for more than 17 years, discusses a recently released second edition of the 1979 guidebook, Kansas City: A Place in Time, that highlights additional structures — from recognizable landmarks to small neighborhood...

Folklorist and historian Adam Miller recalls the frontier-life origins of the folk music of Kansas and Missouri. A singer and autoharp virtuoso, he weaves in a selection of songs and stories.

Art historian Joan Stack explores how two 1845 paintings by Missouri artist and politician George Caleb Bingham may have reflected anxiety about President James K. Polk’s expansionist ambitions and pro-war policies.

The world’s eyes were drawn in April to the iconic tower of Kansas City’s Liberty Memorial, site of the official centennial commemoration of our country’s entry into the Great War. Completed and dedicated in 1926, the Liberty Memorial and National World War I Museum are unique in their scope, constituting the larges...