
Three of Iowa’s “Hidden or Forbidden Histories” will be revealed by Iowa native Michael Luick-Thrams in programs being held Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday at the Hausbarn Heritage-Park in Manning. The three programs will start at 6:30 p.m. each evening.
Monday will feature “One of the Deadliest Killers Ever: 1918’s Flu Pandemic,” which killed 7,500 Iowans, 675,000 Americans, and more than 45 million people worldwide. Suspected and documented origins of that cataclysm, charts and maps of the infection’s rates and Iowans’ responses to it will be presented.
Tuesday's program will be “The Klan: The White Cancer.” Luick-Thrams will show the three waves of the Ku Klux Klan. Emphasis will be on the Second Wave, which in the 1920s stormed the American Heartland. Luick-Thrams, who grew up on a Century Farm in North Central Iowa, pointed out that his great-grandfather had been in the Belmond Klan.
The final program on Wednesday will be “The Cow War: Farmer Rebellions in America’s Heartland during the Great Depression.” A number of agrarian rebellions sprung up in the Midwest in the 1930s, including the “Farmers Holiday Association,” forerunner of the NFO. In the “Cow War,” Iowa dairy farmers violently stopped federal agents from TB-testing their herds. The loosely-organized “Penny Auctions” tried to keep bankrupt farmers on their farms through collective action.
The three Manning programs are being co-sponsored by Dr. David Martin of Carroll and the Hausbarn Heritage Park, in addition to support from Humanities Iowa and Illinois Humanities. The first of the four-part series on Iowa’s Hidden or Forbidden Histories, “Kickin’ the Kaiser,” was held in Manning in October 2018.
The Hausbarn-Heritage Park is located at 130 Heritage Dr. on the east edge of Manning. The programs are open to the public, with special invitations being sent to select audiences such as historical groups, medical personal, clergy and members of farm organizations.
Although there is no admission fee, a free-will offering will be taken toward operating expenses of the park. Prior to each evening’s lecture, a guided tour of the Hausbarn-Heritage Park will be offered at 4:45 pm for $4. The Roten Bar Tavern will open at 5:00 pm, and brats will be sold from 5 to 6:30 p.m.