56 A Wilde Sunflower in Kansas

In April 1882, a twenty-seven-year-old Oscar Wilde carried his gospel of beauty into Kansas and discovered that the Sunflower State was not entirely prepared for an Irish aesthete in velvet breeches. Following Wilde through northeastern Kansas, Dr. Liam explores the strange collision between the Victorian Aesthetic Movement and the practical sensibilities of the American Midwest. Many laughed at Wilde’s appearance, but some Kansans recognized a hidden diamond in the rough as Wilde raised a question that still matters: in a civilization very good at making useful things, have we forgotten how important it is to make beautiful ones?