In 2023, the Kansas City Museum will make select program content—that is presented at Corinthian Hall—able virtually on this website. We hope you will enjoy this resource.
Dress & Drinks with Costume Society of America
Conversations on Dress with Lisa Shockley
Virtual program: 57 minutes
Click Here View
Join the Costume Society of America as they speak with Lisa Shockley, Curator of Collections at Kansas City Museum. The Costume Society of America is an organization dedicated to “The History of Dress. The Future of Fashion”. As part of their mission, they host monthly webinars for their members, a series called “Dress and Drinks”. This series is an informal visit and interview, discussing various collections around the country. Past featured museums featured include the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, the Henry Ford Museum, the Maine and Missouri Historical Societies, the Museo de las Americas, and more. The Kansas City Museum was the featured museum in February 2023.
More Details:
The museum holds a body of dress ranging from everyday wear to haute couture to photographs and artifact accompaniments, all in all encompassing over 20,000 garments. The collection highlights Kansas City as a fashion hub through time: in the 1870s, as local women ordered from Charles Worth in Paris and “1 in 4 women in the country were wearing dresses from Kansas City” and in 2023, as anyone can come learn about the city and dress at large through Shockley’s font of knowledge. Drawn to castoffs and the sometimes overlooked, Shockley grew up wearing the clothes of grandmothers and great-grandmothers and continues to carry this sense of exploration of others and their garments through her 30 plus years in curation. Her experience is vast; she holds a BA in Theater and an MA in history and is trained in conservation. She has made Tudor dresses and wedding gowns and holds a love for Native American Indian beadwork. Shockley’s diverse curiosity and the places this takes her are no doubt reflected in her work in Kansas City. “As someone who trained as a social historian, telling the history of a place through the lives of ‘ordinary’ people and their belongings” continually excites her, and the museum’s breadth and depth proves people anything but ordinary.
Nuestro Legado (Our Legacy)
The Santa Fe Trail: Trade Route & Cultural Exchange
Click here
On February 5, 2022, in the JE Dunn Theater, Kansas City Museum Historian-in-Residence Dr. Gene T. Chávez and guest historian Thomas E. Chavez, Ph.D. presented the history of Latinos on the Santa Fe Trail and how they created a two-way international trade route and catalyst for cultural exchange between the United States and Mexico.
For Restore KC (#RestoreKC) virtual programs, click here.
Origin of Restore KC
Restore KC (#RestoreKC) was launched in July 2020 as a series of virtual conversations and programs for Kansas Citians to connect, process, and heal during the global pandemic, economic crisis, and social awakening about the realities of systemic racism permeating every level of our existence
Restore KC was produced by Kansas City Museum in partnership with Bruce R. Watkins Cultural Heritage Center, Black Archives of Mid-America, UMKC’s Center for Neighborhoods, UNESCO Creative City-KC, and African American Artists Collective. Programs from July 2020 through October 2021 (see below) explored how to restore health, trust, and hope while confronting trauma, disparities, and injustice. Programs were intended to identify creative, resourceful strategies to achieve a mutual understanding, strengthen relationships, repair harm, and embrace our shared humanity.
To view more virtual programs and videos, CLICK HERE to visit our YouTube page.