WHAT: Brown Bag Lecture Series
HOSTED BY: UNK Department of History
TITLE: “An Interview, a Brothel and a Baseball Great: Three Tales from Turn of the Century Kearney”
TOPIC: Kearney boomed and busted at the end of the 19th century. Banks shuttered, unemployment reached new heights and the mayor was arrested by the sheriff in a local brothel. This presentation will explore three figures from this period: Maude Marston Burrows, the city’s first female journalist and attorney, Maude Gebhart, madam in the city’s notorious Burnt District, and Bud Fowler, second baseman for the Kearney Giants and the earliest known professional Black baseball player. Illuminating these figures brings the complexities of this era in Kearney’s history to the fore.
PRESENTER: Nathan Tye is the assistant professor of Nebraska and American West history at UNK, where he’s taught since 2019. He received his doctorate from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and his research focuses on the lives of migrant laborers, better known as hobos, and their efforts to survive on society’s margins. Tye serves on the boards of several local community museums and cultural organizations. His research is published in Nebraska History, Annals of Iowa and Willa Cather Review and he’s appeared on NBC’s celebrity genealogy program “Who Do You Think You Are?”
TIME: Noon
DATE: Wednesday, July 12
PLACE: Kearney Public Library, 2020 First Ave.
CONTACT: Nathan Tye, assistant history professor, 308.865.8860, tyen@unk.edu
