Prairie Journal

How did an inventor manage to build a subway in New York City...in secret? KPR's own Matthew Algeo tells the story in "New York's Secret Subway: The Underground Genius of Alfred Beach and the Origins of Mass Transit."

The 4th annual Paper Plains Zine Fest is coming up Labor Day weekend in Lawrence.  It's three days of celebrating, exploring, and exhibiting zines and zine culture.  We talk to Rachel Gibson and Grace D. Corndog, zine creators and volunteers with the Zine Fest.

Former U.S. Senator Nancy Kassebaum Baker passed away August 21, 2026, at the age of 94.  In this special rebroadcast of her 2022 talk at the Dole Institute of Politics, she reflects on her life, her career, and her legacy.

KPR's Community Spotlight this month is on NAVO, a collective of internationally-recognized musicians and performers based in the Kansas City area.

Charley Curtis was the first Native American elected to the U.S. Congress, the Senate, and the Vice-Presidency.  Deb Goodrich explores Curtis's Kansas roots and his political legacy in her Kansas Notable Award-winning book, part of our Kansas 250 Bookshelf series.

Dirty politics, partisan division, contested elections, fake news -- none of it is new.  Greg Jackson is the author of "Been There, Done That: How Our History Shows What We Can Overcome" and the host of the "History That Doesn't Suck" podcast.

We visit with best-selling author Laura Moriarty about her just-released novel, Sunshine Finds You.  Also, Robert Rebein's The Last Rancher has been named to the Library of Congress' "Great Reads from Great Places" for 2026.  Both these authors join Kaye McIntyre on this week's program.

What better way to celebrate America 250 than with food?  This month's Kansas 250 Bookshelf features Teatime to Tailgates: 150 Years at the K-State Table and Amy Barickman's Vintage Notions.

Kansas voters head to the polls August 4th in the primary.  Who's running and what's on the ballot? Washburn University's Bob Beatty joins us to talk about the constitutional amendment on electing Kansas Supreme Court justices, and we hear from the candidates for Kansas governor and U.S. Senate.

From Kentucky to Kansas to New York City in the Gilded Age, journalist-reformer and self-proclaimed "Queen of Bohemia" Zoe Anderson Norris chronicled the lives of immigrants and the poor in her self-published magazine, The East Side.