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 third Sunday of each month in Collections Storage at Union Station Kansas City, allowing the actual artifact to be presented with the observations of our Community Curator.

When: Sunday, Dec. 21 at 2 p.m.

Where: Town Hall at Union Station Kansas City

Admission: Free

Address: 30 W. Pershing Road, Kansas City, MO 64108

For many, the holiday season brings back nostalgic memories of holiday traditions. Visitors watching the sparkling Christmas lights switching on at the Country Club Plaza, or making special trips into the city to see Santa Claus, the Fairy Princess and the illuminated crowns in downtown’s fashionable shopping district “Petticoat Lane,” are among many such distinct “Kansas City” images.

Noted Kansas City author and journalist Monroe Dodd will trace Kansas City’s unique holiday traditions at Kansas City Museum at Corinthian Hall’s Community Curator Lecture at 2 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 21 in Union Station’s Town Hall. Dodd, who has previously written about Kansas City’s holiday spirit in the book Christmastime in Kansas City, will discuss the rich holiday customs of Kansas City and its residents using the Museum’s collection of historic holiday photos.

About the Curator

Monroe Dodd has held various editing jobs at The Kansas City Star and it’s long-ago morning edition, The Kansas City Times, and has helped produce material about local history and people for The Star’s web site. He had a hand in The Star’s 1999 local history book, Kansas City: An American Story, and in other books on Kansas City topics, among them Christmastime in Kansas City: The Story of the Season. Among other projects were books on the revival of Union Station, the city’s once-sprawling streetcar network and the 1951 flood. He also created three books comparing scenes of yesteryear with the same scenes today, Kansas City Then & Now, Kansas City Then & Now 2 and Kansas City Then & Now 3. He has a bachelor’s degree in journalism and a master’s in history from the University of Kansas. His wife, Jean, is an architect and they live in Shawnee, Kan.

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