Echoes of the Heartland

Nebraska Humanities Series 2025

Hear the voices of Nebraska's rich past with the return of the exciting series, Echoes of the Heartland, featuring stories of history, culture, and music. Presented by 12 speakers from Humanities Nebraska, each event is free and open to the public and runs from February through December.

Upcoming Events | Saturdays @ 2pm

The Queen's Road: Nebraska's Bumpy Path to Statehood
Speaker: Jeff Barnes
February 22 @ 2pm

With many historic and colorful images and anecdotes, including rare maps, Barnes presents the second chapter in his Queen of the Prairies series. This presentation covers the second half of the territorial years, examining how and why Nebraska arrived at its present shape; how federal policies promoting white settlement and Native removal forced the territory to become a battleground; the incident that birthed the legend of Wild Bill Hickok, the fight for statehood; and much more exciting Nebraskan history!

Footprints & Handprints: Days on the Farm in the 19th Century
Speaker: Renae Hunt
April 9 @ 2pm

Calloused hands and boots worn well past their usefulness are evidence of the difficulty the early American farm family experienced. Follow the daily routines and chores of children and adults on the early American farm. Tools and utensils used each day to help sustain the family are demonstrated and discussed.

Music of the Plains
Speaker: Dave Marsh
April 19 @ 2pm

Pioneers who settled the Plains traveled from far and wide, yet endured many similar joys and hardships. David’s goals with this program are twofold: to demonstrate the various cultures represented by these courageous folks and to share stories and sing songs that arose out of their common experience of early life here. Through music, audiences learn about homesteading, cowboys, children’s games, and the wonders of the wide open prairie.

Diaries & Letters of Early Nebraska Settlers
Speaker: Lucy Adkins & Marge Saiser
May 10 @ 2pm

Women pioneers and homesteaders played an important part in the development and heritage of Nebraska. In this program, Marge Saiser and Lucy Adkins will honor them, featuring excerpts from diaries and letters of plains women of the past. In addition, they will share poems they have written about the history and experiences of their own plains’ families.

Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History
Speaker: Deb Carpenter-Nolting
June 21 @ 2pm

Deb-Carpenter-Nolting offers stories, songs, and poems about women who left footprints on history by stepping out of place. Hear the stories of not-so-well-behaved women such as Helga Estby, who walked across America in 1896; female stagecoach robber, Pearl Hart; Ann Eliza Young, Brigham Young’s 19th wife; Nebraska writer, Mari Sandoz, who wrote about the realities of the West; lady bronc rider, Tad Lucas; and more in this program.

President U.S. Grant
Speaker: Dr. Tom King
July 12 @ 2pm

Step back to the Gilded Age and listen to the stories and personal history from one of America’s most popular and yet misunderstood Presidents. This Chautauqua-style portrayal takes President Ulysses S. Grant from personal mediocrity to his promotion to the highest-ranking general in the Union Army to his election as the eighteenth President of the United States. Complete with period costume, the presentation allows audiences to relive the two controversial presidential terms through the eyes of Ulysses S. Grant.

Call of the West: Challenges & Opportunities
Speaker: Marci Broyhill & Teresa Kay Orr
August 2 @ 2pm

From the 1830s to the 1900s, learn about the challenges and opportunities of the American Western Movement in Nebraska, including the lure of adventure and economic opportunities, the physical and emotional struggles, the importance and evolution of the Great Platte River Road on guiding travelers west, its impact on the Native tribes, the role of horses in the movement, and a reflection of the rural and small-town lifestyle in Nebraska, a culture for which many people yearn.

Marion Marsh Brown: A Continuing Legacy in Nebraska Writing
Speaker: Dan Holtz
August 23 @ 2pm

Explore the writing and teaching careers of the remarkable writer, Marion Marsh Brown. As the author of 20 published books, 9 of which won national awards, Brown pursued a writing career that spanned the 1940’s to the 1990’s and was recognized by the Nebraska Council of Teachers of English as one of Nebraska’s 10 most important writers in the late 1950’s.

Wright Moris: Small-Town Life Through the Eyes of a Nebraska Writer
Speaker: Nancy B. Johnson
September 6 @ 2pm

Wright Morris often questioned if the images of his boyhood as they appear in his works were real or imaginary. Many of the real images he wrote about can be seen in early 20th century photographs of Central City, Nebraska. Nancy Johnson pairs these photos and more recent photos of artifacts with narrative passages from his works, and uses images and words to create a picture of small-town Nebraska life as experienced by the writer.

Encounters with World Music
Speaker: Randall Snyder
October 18 @ 2pm

These introductory remarks on non-Western systems of art and folk music include such topics as Islamic music from North Africa and the Middle East, the structure of the North Indian raga, the Indonesian gamelan, and traditional music from Korea. This presentation features recordings, video material, and demonstrations of instruments.

Kind Nebraskans: Personal Stories of Nebraskans in World War II
Speaker: Charlotee Endorf
November 8 @ 2pm

This program is based on research and interviews conducted by Kevin and Charlotte Endorf. A Newsweek poll in 2020 showed that less than half of adult Americans know how many Jews were killed in the Holocaust or how Hitler’s nationalist Nazi party came to power in Germany ahead of WWII. These true stories of five Nebraskans who experienced WWII in different ways are told to inform today’s audiences, so that history is less likely to be repeated in the future.

Cattle Trail and Songs of the West
Speaker: Joan Wells
December 6 @ 2pm

When the Union Pacific built the railroad across Nebraska in 1867, cattle ranching was almost unknown in the state. With a surplus of cattle in Texas, cattle drives brought hundreds of thousands of cattle to Nebraska by way of the Great Western Trail from San Antonio to Ogallala, where they were shipped to markets in eastern cities. The cowboys on these four-month-long cattle drives would pass the time singing songs about life on the trail. They’d calm the cattle at night with songs traced back to European folk songs. Wells and Simon sing and tell the story of the origin of western music.

Funding provided by:

For more information about our partner, visit the Humanities Nebraska website.