Community Curator

Fourth Tuesday of Every Month* | 6:30 p.m. | Free | Union Station

The Community Curator program of Kansas City Museum invites historians and history educators to share their perspectives on artifacts they choose from the Museum collection. This provides fresh insight about artifacts and collections of Kansas City Museum and Union Station, and welcomes diverse input from the Kansas City history community. Community Curator lectures are presented the fourth Tuesday of each month at Union Station Kansas City, allowing the actual artifact to be presented with the observations of our Community Curator.

See videos of past Community Curator lectures

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Tuesday, May 22 Glenn North, American Jazz Museum Poet-in-Residence,
Doc Brown Cakewalker

Discover the lost art of the cakewalk and learn about Kansas City’s champion cakewalker, Doctor William Henry Joseph Cutter Brown, at Kansas City Museum’s May Community Curator Speaker Series presentation, Tuesday, May 22 at 6:30 p.m. at Union Station. American Jazz Museum poet in residence Glenn North will explore the life of this legendary cakewalker, who popular white ragtime composer Charles L. Johnson dedicated a tune to him, called "Doc Brown's Cakewalk," published by Jenkins Music Company of Kansas City, in 1899. The famous composer John Philip Sousa performed the tune in Kansas City during a cross country tour.

A series of high kicking steps, the cakewalk earned its name from contests in which the prize for the best dancer was a cake. It is said that he could always be seen cakewalking on the streets of Kansas City, and that whenever he had someplace to go, he would cakewalk all the way there instead of walking or taking the street car.

*The program will be on vacation in June and July

August 28 Michele Fricke, Art History Program Head, Kansas City Art Institute, Historic Decorative Arts

Community Curator Program

Discover artifacts from the Kansas City Museum through our Community Curator Program. The Community Curator program of Kansas City Museum invites historians and history educators to share their perspectives on artifacts they choose from the Museum collection. This provides fresh insight about artifacts and collections of Kansas City Museum and Union Station, and welcomes diverse input from the Kansas City history community.