H-Iowa

Join us at noon on Thursday, May 7, when historian Andrea Rodriguez discusses a WPA mural as part of the History for Lunch series at the State Historical Society of Iowa, 402 Iowa Avenue, Iowa City. The title of her presentation is “Justice Evolves in Painted Form: Cedar Rapids Courtroom Murals.”

Inch by inch, painstaking work continues at the new Cedar Rapids City Hall to unveil a colorful mural cycle that was painted on the third-floor walls of the former federal courthouse during the Great Depression that not once, but twice, was whitewashed because it was deemed as inferior or offensive.

The

Join us at noon on Thursday, April 23, when art historian Andrea Truitt examines women’s lives and the spaces they inhabited. The title of her presentation is “Visualizing Interiors and Entering into Illustrations: Images of Exoticized Domestic Space in Turn-of-the-Century American Magazines.” It is a part of the History for Lunch series at the State Historical Society of Iowa, 402 Iowa Avenue, Iowa City. 

In the 1890s, interior decorating and women’s magazines in the United States presented many articles about how to incorporate foreign goods into the American home. Accompanying these articles

The Spring 2015 issue of The Annals of Iowa is now available. It features two articles on working women in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, at the end of the nineteenth century.

In one feature article, BRIE SWENSON ARNOLD, assistant professor of history at Coe College, offers an account of an unsuccessful effort by seven African American women to break the color line at a garment factory in Cedar Rapids in 1897. Arnold sets that effort thoroughly in the context of the experience of African American and Bohemian American working-class women in the city at the turn of the twentieth century.

In the other

Join us at 12:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 9, when Barbara Eckstein, Mark NeuCollins, Eric Tate, and Nate Otjen of the University of Iowa provide a historical overview of Iowa’s weather as part of the History for Lunch series at the State Historical Society of Iowa, 402 Iowa Avenue, Iowa City. The title of this presentation is “The Public and The Peoples’ Weather Map.”

The Peoples' Weather Map is a county-searchable digital map of historical and current severe weather stories in Iowa. To help find and compose the stories in text, photograph, and video, researchers partnered with the State

Jin us at noon on Thursday, March 26, when Loren Horton, Ina Loewenberg, and the Reading Aloud group will share poetry as part of the History for Lunch series at the State Historical Society of Iowa, 402 Iowa Avenue, Iowa City. The title of this presentation is “Thinking About World War One: Poets and Their Poems.”

An astonishing number of published poets were killed in World War I. From them, and from the few who survived, we have a good description of several phases of warfare, including what the battlefield was like, the comradeship among the soldiers, and how they thought and felt about why

Where the Lincoln Road Meets the Mississippi: A Conference on Industry, Commerce, and Community in the Iowa-Illinois Gateway Area, 1835-Present

Join the Sawmill Museum, Windmill Cultural Center, and Clinton Public Library for the first annual Gateway History Conference, featuring panels from various scholars, educators, and enthusiasts covering a range of regional history topics from 1835–present (see schedule below). This year’s  keynote speaker is Clark Kidder, author of Emily’s Story: The Brave Journey of an Orphan Train Rider and co-produced and co-writer of West By Orphan Train, a new film

A Kirkwood Democracy Commitment Event

“Once Upon a Time in the Midwest:

Two Authors Reflect on Regionalism and Writing”

A Conversation with Patrick Hicks and Jon Lauck

Kirkwood Community College

Iowa City Campus, Commons Area

March 12, 2015

11:15am-12:10pm

Patrick Hicks is an American writer, poet, and Writer-in-Residence at Augustana College. From Stillwater, Minnesota, much of his fiction takes place in the Midwest, but his poetry often discusses his experiences in Northern Ireland, Germany, and Spain. Hicks is a dual citizen of the United States and Ireland. He holds degrees from College of Saint

Please join us at noon on Thursday, March 12, when Barbara Boyle delivers a History for Lunch lecture at the State Historical Society of Iowa, 402 Iowa Avenue, Iowa City. The title of her talk is “Althea Sherman and Her Chimney Swifts’ Tower.”

Barbara Boyle will talk about native Iowan Althea R. Sherman (1853-1943), who launched a second, self-taught career at age 50 in the science of ornithology. She made of her “Acre of Birds” in northeast Iowa a living research laboratory and studied 42 specific bird species for 7 to 36 years each. Her paintings of the American Goldfinch inspired the Iowa

Join us on Thursday, February 26, when Marlin R. Ingalls delivers a History for Lunch lecture at noon at the State Historical Society of Iowa, 402 Iowa Avenue, Iowa City. The title of his talk is “A Historical and Scientific Investigation of the Iowa City and Cedar Rapids Brewery Caves.”

In the 1850s, a series of tunnels and underground brewery caves were built in Iowa City, such as those located underneath the Brewery Square on the corner of Market and Linn Streets. Recently, the beer caves in Iowa City and Cedar Rapids were evaluated by expert Marlin R. Ingalls, who will present an overview