Join the Polk City Public Library on April 1, 2026 for a Speakers Bureau program featuring author Beth Hoffman. After leaving a career in San Francisco to take up farming in Iowa, Hoffman experienced firsthand the challenges facing today’s farmers. Her book, Bet the Farm: The Dollars and Sense of Growing Food in America, blends personal narrative with sharp […]

The Corning Opera House will welcome historian Chad Timm on April 3, 2026, for a presentation on Iowa’s little-known World War II prisoner of war camps. Chad Timm explores life in the camps at Algona and Clarinda, the labor POWs provided to local farmers, and the complex relationships between prisoners and communities. This program sheds light on […]

Join the Cedar Rapids Public Library for the Speakers Bureau presentation "Promoting Peace, Subverting Domesticity: Cookbooks Against War, 1970-2010. This historical project analyzes peace activist cookbooks, revealing how such texts ignite activism, enable community identity for subcultures and adeptly subvert women’s domestic roles. The discussion this research features further extends our understandings of cookbooks and […]

The Union Public Library will host Darcy Maulsby on April 6, 2026 for a Humanities Iowa Speakers Bureau program. Maulsby uncovers the remarkable and often overlooked Iowa connections to the Titanic disaster of 1912. From orphan train riders to immigrants, farmers, and businesspeople, audiences will hear the haunting and poignant stories of Iowans aboard the […]

Join the West Des Moines Public Library for the presentation AI and the Human Future by Scott Samuelson. This presentation focuses on the big moral and political issues surrounding artificial intelligence. What exactly is AI? Can it make our lives and our communities better, or is it going to take all our jobs and kill […]

Join Iowa State University for Open Book, a dialogue-centered program that invites participants to reflect on history, culture, and civic life through conversations with culture bearers from their own communities. This program is part of By the People: Conversations Beyond 250, a series of community-driven programs created by humanities councils in collaboration with local partners. The […]

The Polk County Conservation Board will host Darcy Maulsby on April 7, 2026 for a Humanities Iowa Speakers Bureau program. Maulsby uncovers the remarkable and often overlooked Iowa connections to the Titanic disaster of 1912. From orphan train riders to immigrants, farmers, and businesspeople, audiences will hear the haunting and poignant stories of Iowans aboard […]

Join Iowa State University for Open Book, a dialogue-centered program that invites participants to reflect on history, culture, and civic life through conversations with culture bearers from their own communities. This program is part of By the People: Conversations Beyond 250, a series of community-driven programs created by humanities councils in collaboration with local partners. The […]

Join the Lakin Library & Envisioning Center for the Speakers Bureau presentation "Your Grampa and Gramma's Farm" by Rich Tyler. Farming in the late 1800s and early 1900s represents a lifestyle of hard work, inventions, prosperity and depression. This presentation focuses on a typical farmer, Joshua Secrest, who developed a successful livestock farm. It also […]

Join the Guttenberg Library Foundation for the Speakers Bureau presentation Packing Up by Sarah Uthoff. "Look in on Laura Ingalls Wilder as she is packing up to move to Missouri. Each artifact in the old chest holds a story."

Join Save Our Depot, Inc. in Red Oak on April 8, 2026 at 1:30 p.m. for a one-man performance by Pete Grady, Unconditional Surrender: A Visit with Ulysses S. Grant. Through storytelling, period music, and historic images, Grady brings to life the Civil War general and 18th President of the United States. This engaging and […]

The Tama County Historical Society will host Jeff Stein on April 8, 2026 for a Humanities Iowa Speakers Bureau program. Stein—an award-winning author, historian, and broadcaster—shares the groundbreaking story of how radio and television developed in Iowa and shaped life across the nation. Based on his book Making Waves, the presentation features original broadcasts, photographs, […]