In this podcast from the Kansas Museum of History, the curators examine a classic folly in the world of exercise equipment: the belt vibrator. The podcast also includes an overview of the history of the creation of the machine and a brief discussion of its usefulness as a weight-loss device.
In this podcast by the Kansas Museum of History, museum curators use a rather vicious-looking hammer as a spring board to discuss the (literal) saloon-smashing crusade of Carry Nation.
From the Kansas State Historical Society website:
"In honor of Memorial Day, we consider a service flag that was proudly displayed by a Kansas family during World War I. Their son was serving his country 'over there'."
This podcast from the Kansas Museum of History looks at a painting commissioned by Henrietta Briggs-Wall of Hutchinson, Kansas for the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago. The curators discuss the controversy surrounding this painting's representation of the rights of 19th century women in politics and society.
From the Kansas Museum of History website:
"Some art has strong historical value. These paintings by Croatian American artist Marijana Grisnik depict memories of an old Kansas City neighborhood known as Strawberry Hill."
PBS' documentary series American Experience looks at the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic. Amelia Earhart disappeared in 1937 while she was attempting to circumnavigate the world by airplane.
From PBS:
As the wife of the fourth president, James Madison, Dolley Madison played an important part in the political and social experiment that was the early American Republic. Long before women held any overt political power, she used her unelected position to legitimize the nation's new capital, to create a political and social style for the new country, and to give Americans a sense of their own national identity.
From the Kansas Museum of History website:
"A century ago, photography was much more difficult than point-and-shoot. In this podcast we hear about the challenges faced by a pioneering woman photographer. Alice Gardiner Sennrich documented her town—Valley Falls, Kansas—through the lens of a massive camera."
University of Iowa professor Marshall Poe interviews Jennifer Burns about her book Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right, on the life and times of Russian-American writer and philosopher Ayn Rand.
From the Kansas State Historical Society website:
"The United States didn't immediately send soldiers to fight in World War I, but that didn't stop Americans from volunteering. In this episode we hear the story behind a nurse's uniform worn by Ethelyn Myers, whose career took her from small-town Kansas to the battlefields of Europe."