Upcoming Events

In recent years, the Deaf community has gained greater visibility in popular culture. The success of CODA (2021), starring Deaf actors Troy Kotsur and Marlee Matlin, along with Nyle DiMarco’s groundbreaking achievements as the first Deaf winner of Dancing with the Stars and America’s Next Top Model, showcase this shift. Yet, Deaf Americans have been shaping history and defying barriers since before our nation’s founding.

Lawrence Yates, President of the Missouri School for the Deaf, and Becky M. Davis, Executive Director of the Missouri Commission for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, will highlight the extraordinary life of one Deaf Missourian: Laura Redden Searing. A gifted poet and journalist, Searing published under both her own name and the pen name Howard Glyndon. During the Civil War, The St. Louis Republican sent her to Washington, D.C., where she not only reported on the conflict, but also wrote poems about the events she witnessed on the battlefield. Join us as Yates and Davis share how, despite living as a Deaf woman in the 19^th century, Searing rose to become one of the leading literary voices of her day, defying the presumed limitations of her disability.

American Sign Language Interpreter will be provided.

At 5:41 p.m. on May 22, 2011, the deadliest tornado to strike the United States in 60 years tore through Joplin, Missouri. By the time it completed its devastating path, one-third of the community lay in ruins, 161 lives were lost, and survivors were left with stories they would carry forever.

5:41: Stories from the Joplin Tornado brings together firsthand accounts from more than two dozen survivors, alongside reporting from award-winning journalist and photographer John Hacker of the Joplin Globe and former newspaper reporter and editor Randy Turner, who was teaching eighth-grade English at Joplin East Middle School in 2011.

Join us as Turner chronicles both the tragedy of the storm’s destruction and the triumph of Joplin’s residents—whose resilience and determination to rebuild inspired a nation.

The Santa Fe Trail has a special allure in southwestern history—it was a road of lucrative commerce, military expansion, and great adventure. Because these themes are connected with the Santa Fe Trail in the American imagination, however, the trail is not often associated with stories of women. Crossings tells the personal stories of several women who made the journey, showing how they were involved with and affected by Santa Fe Trail trade. The Santa Fe Trail was a nexus of nations and cultures, connecting the northern frontier of newly formed Mexico with the quickly expanding western United States, as well as with the many Indigenous nations whose traditional lands it crossed.

With her attention on women, Frances Levine enriches our understanding of the Santa Fe Trail and shows how interregional trade affected Missouri and the nation's society, politics, and culture.