Activist to Investigate the Calamity of Coal at Washington College

Chestertown – Cultural historian, author and activist Jeff Biggers will explore the fallacy of “clean coal” in a lecture at Washington College on Monday, February 8, at 4:30 p.m. at the Rose O’Neill Literary House located on Washington Avenue.

In his new book, RECKONING AT EAGLE CREEK: The Secret Legacy of Coal in the Heartland, Biggers critiques the industry, the Big Coal lobby, and national leaders who stand at a crossroads in the energy and climate debate. “Coal is not – and never will be – clean or cheap,” he says.

Biggers – whose grandfather worked in the coal mines in southern Illinois and suffered from black lung disease – argues that we have stripped away the most troubling issues of the coal industry from our historical memory. “We have forgotten that Native Americans were removed as part of Thomas Jefferson’s national policy to mine coal, that the industry in the land of Lincoln…was launched by legal black slaves, and that strip mining unleashed environmental havoc that has wiped out families and poisoned some of the most diverse forests and waterways in America’s heartland.”

An acclaimed correspondent from the coalfields' frontlines, Jeff Biggers has been interviewed on numerous national and local television and radio programs, has served as a commentator for NPR’s Morning Edition, and is a regular contributor to Huffington Post.

The lecture, sponsored by the Rose O’Neill Literary House and the Center for Environment & Society at Washington College, is free and open to the public.  For information, contact 410-778-7845.

Goodfellow Lecture Puts Globalization In Historical Perspective, March 17 At Washington College

Chestertown, MD, February 25, 2004 — The Washington College Department of History's annual Guy F. Goodfellow Memorial Lecture welcomes Louis Galambos, professor of history at Johns Hopkins University, speaking on “The Global Workplace in Historical Perspective,” Wednesday, March 17, at 7:30 p.m. in the College's Hynson Lounge. The event is free and the public is invited to attend.

Dr. Louis Galambos serves as professor of economic and business history at Johns Hopkins University and is the editor of The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower. He has taught at Rice University, Rutgers University and Yale University, and has served as President of the Business History Conference and the Economic History Association. A former editor of The Journal of Economic History, he has written extensively on U.S. business history, on business-government relations, on the economic aspects of modern institutional development in America, and on the rise of the bureaucratic state, giving him a long and deep historical perspective on the phenomenon of economic globalization. His books includeCompetition and Cooperation: The Emergence of a Modern Trade Association, The Public Image of Big Business in America, 1880-1940, America at Middle Age, The Rise of the Corporate Commonwealth and Anytime, Anywhere: Entrepreneurship and the Creation of a Wireless World. Galambos is president and a principal of the Business History Group, a consulting organization, and has been an historical consultant to Merck & Co., Inc., Pacific Telesis Group, AT&T, and the World Bank Group. In addition to editing The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, he has edited (with Robert Gallman) the Cambridge University Press series Studies in Economic History and Policy: The United States in the Twentieth Centuryand is currently co-editor (with Geoffrey Jones) of the Cambridge Studies in the Emergence of Global Enterprise.

The Guy F. Goodfellow Memorial Lecture Series was established in 1989 to honor the memory of the late history professor who had taught at Washington College for 30 years. The intent of the endowed lecture series is to bring a distinguished historian to campus each year to lecture and to spend time with students in emulation of Dr. Goodfellow's vibrant teaching style.

For more information on upcoming lectures and events at Washington College, visithttp://calendar.washcoll.edu.

Speaker Explores The Political And Cultural Symbolism In American Mapmaking, November 5

Chestertown, MD, October 20, 2003 — Washington College's C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience presents “THE GEOGRAPHICAL IMAGINATION IN AMERICA,” a lecture by Susan Schulten, assistant professor of history at the University of Denver, Wednesday, November 5, at 7:30 p.m. in the College's Hynson Lounge. The event is free and the public is invited to attend.
The author of the book The Geographical Imagination in America, 1880-1950 (University of Chicago Press, 2001), Schulten will explore how politics, history and culture influenced the study and presentation of geography in America from 1880, when maps first became widely available, to 1950, the beginning of the Cold War. Her research tells the story of Americans beginning to see the world around them, how maps of the historical period represented U.S. attitudes toward the world, and how four influential institutions—publicly available maps and atlases, the National Geographic Society, the American university, and the public school system—conveyed through mapmaking and the teaching of geography the political and cultural ideology of our nation.
Publishers Weekly described Schulten's book as “a well-documented account of how politics, history and culture influenced the study and presentation of geography… Theory is wisely balanced by a hodgepodge of odd and interesting facts about maps, politics and American cultural trends.”
For more information about C. V. Starr Center events and programs, visit the Center online at http://starrcenter.washcoll.edu, or call 410-810-7156.

Historian To Discuss The Underground Literature Of 18th Century France, October 23

Chestertown, MD, October 14, 2003 — Washington College's Conrad Wingate Memorial Lecture Series presents “Mademoiselle Bonafon and the Private Life of Louis XV: What the Butler Saw and What the Public Read in 18th Century France,” a lecture by Princeton historian Robert Darnton. This free lecture will be held Thursday, October 23, at 4 p.m. in the College's Norman James Theatre. The public is invited to attend.
A former Rhodes scholar, Dr. Darnton holds a Doctor of Philosophy in history from Oxford University (1964) and now serves as the Shelby Cullom Davis Professor of European History at Princeton University. He is well known for his behind-the-scenes approach and research into the undersides of history, the history of books and the history of censorship with a specific focus on 18th century France. His books include The Great Cat Massacre: And Other Episodes in French Cultural History (1985); Berlin Journal: 1989-1990 (1993); The Forbidden Best-Sellers of Pre-Revolutionary France (1996), which won the National Book Critics Circle Award; and the recently released George Washington's False Teeth: An Unconventional Guide to the Eighteenth Century (Norton, 2003). In his October 23rd lecture, Dr. Darnton will discuss his most recent research on the underground literature in France attacking King Louis XV and the general theme of illicit literature as it related to public opinion in 18th century Paris. Taking an “historical perspective to current questions” viewpoint, Dr. Darnton sees 18th century France as a society awash in “information” and an underground press with parallels to our own time with the profusion of information and rumor on the Internet.
The Conrad M. Wingate Memorial Lecture in History is held in honor of the late Conrad Meade Wingate '23, brother of late Washington College Visitor Emeritus Phillip J. Wingate '33 and the late Carolyn Wingate Todd. He was principal of Henderson (MD) High School at the time of his death from cerebrospinal meningitis at age 27. At Washington College, he was president of the Dramatic Association, president of the Adelphia Literary Society and vice president of the Student Council in 1922-23.

WC History Professor's Research To Be Featured In New PBS Series

“History Detectives” Will Explore the Legend of Delmarva's Infamous Patty Cannon
Chestertown, MD, July 1, 2003 — Dr. Carol Wilson, associate professor of history at Washington College and author of Freedom at Risk: The Kidnapping of Free Blacks in America, 1780-1865, has contributed her expertise to a new 10-episode Public Television series titled History Detectives. The fourth episode, which will air Thursday, July 17 at 8:00 pm on Maryland Public Television stations, will feature Wilson's research on the infamous Patty Cannon, the leader of a gang based on the Delmarva Peninsula during the early 19th century that made its living by kidnapping free African Americans and selling them into slavery. Wilson's book, published in 1994, includes a study of the activities of this notorious gang.
“Patty Cannon and her criminal exploits are the subject of much local mythology on Delmarva,” said Wilson, who served as a consultant to the show's producers and provided on air historical background on the activities of the Patty Cannon gang. Cannon and her ruthless band of kidnappers were based near the town of Reliance, Delaware, on the Dorchester County, Maryland line, where Cannon's house still stands.
“The history of the kidnapping of free African Americans in antebellum America is little known and studied,” said Wilson, whose 1994 book continues to be the only major scholarly work published on the subject. She was recently a panelist at a Smithsonian-sponsored conference on the Underground Railroad and shared her research on the “other” underground railroad in which thousands of free people were kidnapped and smuggled into slavery.
In 10 one-hour episodes of History Detectives, architects, historians and antiquarians will unlock the history behind any house or artifact. Using the latest technology combined with traditional investigative techniques History Detectives will make amazing discoveries about the homes and possessions of many ordinary Americans. Whether it's a family heirloom or a house with a mysterious past, the series will uncover the history on America's doorstep. Learn more about the series at www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives.

Speaker Explores The Political And Cultural Symbolism In American Mapmaking

Chestertown, MD, March 12, 2003 — Washington College's C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience presents “THE GEOGRAPHIC IMAGINATION IN AMERICA: 1880-1950,” a lecture by Susan Schulten, assistant professor of history at the University of Denver. The event is free and the public is invited to attend.

The author of the book The Geographical Imagination in America, 1880-1950 (University of Chicago Press, 2001), Schulten will explore how politics, history and culture influenced the study and presentation of geography in America from 1880, when maps first became widely available, to 1950, the beginning of the Cold War. Her research tells the story of Americans beginning to see the world around them, how maps of the historical period represented U.S. attitudes toward the world, and how four influential institutions—publicly available maps and atlases, the National Geographic Society, the American university, and the public school system—conveyed through mapmaking and the teaching of geography the political and cultural ideology of our nation. Publishers Weekly described Schulten's book as “a well-documented account of how politics, history and culture influenced the study and presentation of geography… Theory is wisely balanced by a hodgepodge of odd and interesting facts about maps, politics and American cultural trends.”

For more information about C. V. Starr Center events and programs, visit the Center online at http://starrcenter.washcoll.edu, or call 410-810-7156.

Speaker To Discuss The 2000 Presidential Election And The Context Of American Suffrage March 4

Chestertown, MD, February 25, 2003 — Washington College's Guy Goodfellow Memorial Lecture presents “Election 2000 and the Limits of American Democracy,” a lecture by Alexander Keyssar, Professor of History and Social Policy, Harvard University, on Tuesday, March 4, at 4:30 p.m. in the College's Hynson Lounge. The lecture is free and the public is invited to attend.

While the conflict with Iraq and the war on terrorism have preoccupied our nation since September 11, 2001, before that fateful day few subjects commanded our attention more than the controversy surrounding George W. Bush's upset of Al Gore for America's top political position. Dr. Keyssar is the author of the 1986 book, The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States, which was named the best book in U.S. history by the American Historical Association and the Historical Society and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and Los Angeles Times Book Award. In his lecture, Dr. Keyssar will examine the 2000 presidential election in the light of his research on the history of suffrage in America. Although the history of suffrage has been portrayed as a steady and gradual extension of the franchise to broader categories of American society, Dr. Keyssar argues that this history has been consistently challenged by doubts about democracy itself, resistance to expansion of suffrage, and by measures meant to reduce opportunities to vote. The 2000 election brings to the forefront the questions of disenfranchisement, the limitations of the Electoral College, and the role of the Supreme Court in presidential selection and has caused Americans once again to consider the strengths and weaknesses of democracy in the United States, who has the right to a voice, and how the voices of American citizens should be balanced in the election of their leaders. Dr. Keyssar will offer insights into those debates and suggest how our political process will continue to evolve from its contentious foundations.

The Guy F. Goodfellow Memorial Lecture Series was established upon Dr. Goodfellow's death in 1989 to honor the memory of the history professor who had taught at Washington College for 30 years. The intent of the endowed lecture series is to bring a distinguished historian to campus each year to lecture and spend time with students in emulation of Dr. Goodfellow's vibrant teaching style.

Speaker Tells Of Lincoln's Struggle With Depression February 12

Chestertown, MD, February 12, 2003 — In honor of Abraham Lincoln's birthday, Washington College's C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience presents a lecture by Joshua Wolf Shenk, author of the forthcoming book The Melancholy of Abraham Lincoln. Shenk's lecture will be held on Wednesday, February 12, 2003, at 7:30 p.m. in the College's Hynson Lounge. The event is free and the public is invited to attend.

Shenk's book, which will be published by Viking Press in 2004, brings a fresh and unexpected perspective to the often-mythologized life of the sixteenth president. An essayist who has written extensively about both history and mental illness, Shenk has spent the last five years working on a book that will chronicle Lincoln's lifelong struggle with depression. “Everyone who knew Lincoln said that his ‘melancholy' was one of his most striking characteristics,” Shenk says. As a young man, Lincoln's friends feared he would kill himself. And even as he rose in business and politics in his 30s and 40s, he was often consumed with despair. Lincoln was elected president in 1860, at age 51.

Shenk says that psychiatrists who have examined Lincoln's history agree that a diagnosis of major depression would apply. But Shenk warns against easy labels and diagnoses. “To really understand Lincoln's melancholy, you have to look at his whole story,” Shenk says. “And when you do, you see how this problem also underlay some of his great strengths-including his determination to do meaningful work and his deep and complex faith.”

Shenk's lecture, “Fiction, Not Fantasy: Shaping a True History of Abraham Lincoln,” will describe what he has discovered about Lincoln, as well as his experience conceiving, researching, and shaping his book. “Lincoln is one of the most written about human beings in the history of civilization,” Shenk says. “And this makes him a great subject for students of the biographer's techniques and of the role that mythic stories have in a culture.”

Shenk's essays and articles have appeared in Harper's Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly, and the New York Times, as well as in the national bestseller Unholy Ghost: Writers on Depression. He has worked as an editor or correspondent at the Washington Monthly, The New Republic, and The Economist. He has been a Rosalynn Carter Fellow in Mental Health Journalism at the Carter Center, and currently teaches writing at New York University and the New School. He lives in New York City.

For more information about C. V. Starr Center events and programs, visit the Center online athttp://starrcenter.washcoll.edu, or call 410-810-7156.

Art Historian To Discuss Climate Change And Winter Landscapes In Flemish And Dutch Paintings

Chestertown, MD, January 29, 2003 — The Washington College Department of Art, the Center for the Environment and Society and Art History Club present “Bethlehem in the Snow and Holland on the Ice: Climatic Change and the Invention of the Winter Landscape, 1560-1620,” a lecture by Lawrence O. Goedde, Ph.D., Chair of the McIntire Department of Art at the University of Virginia, Tuesday, February 11, at 8 p.m. in the College's Casey Academic Center Forum. The event is free and open to the public.

Dr. Goedde has taught art history at the University of Virginia since 1981. A graduate of Washington University, he received his Ph.D. from Columbia University and specializes in Northern Baroque art. In addition to numerous academic awards and research grants, Dr. Goedde is past vice-president of the Historians of Netherlandish Art. His talk will address both the hypothesis that painted landscapes produced in specific areas depict or imply weather conditions corresponding to the observed weather of those regions and the proposition that changes in climate are reflected in the development of art, or even that climate changes cause artistic change.

His lecture will focus on a group of snow scenes dating to 1565-1567 by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. In these works, the celebrated Flemish artist painted perhaps for the first time in Western art snowy winter weather in a large-scale format and established an artistic subject that remains popular to this day. In recent years a number of scholars of climate history have linked Bruegel's invention to the bitterly cold winter of 1564-65 and to the Little Ice Age of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. But the direct relation of works of art to climate and to changes in climate can be problematic, Dr. Goedde believes, and though Netherlandish art can be highly descriptive, there is a selective realism in Dutch landscape painting that complicates the hypothesis that climate changes necessarily influenced the artists.

Speaker Explores The Rich Cultural Contributions Of Her Enslaved Ancestors February 4

Chestertown, MD, January 21, 2003 — In honor of Black History Month, Washington College's C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience presents “THE DIMINISHING POWER OF MYTH,” a lecture by Dorothy Spruill Redford, executive director of North Carolina's Somerset Place Plantation, Tuesday, February 4, 2003, at 7:30 p.m. in the College's Hynson Lounge. The event is free and the public is invited to attend.

More than 20 years ago, inspired by the landmark television program Roots, Dorothy Spruill Redford began researching her family history, a quest that led her to Somerset Place, once one of North Carolina's wealthiest plantations. Four generations of her enslaved ancestors worked and died there, but when she visited the site, there was no mention of the contributions of Somerset's slaves. Convinced that their story must be told, she began organizing a “homecoming,” an event to bring together the black and white descendants of Somerset. The homecoming became a national news story, and on the appointed day, over two thousand people showed up. Since the first homecoming in 1986, the event has continued to grow. Her book, Somerset Homecoming: Recovering a Lost Heritage, chronicles her inspiring journey into her family's past. Alex Haley called it, “the best, most beautifully researched, and most thoroughly presented black family history that I know of.”

Now the executive director of the historic site where her ancestors once worked in bondage, Redford has incorporated the integral story of the enslaved community into the larger history of Somerset. Her lecture will discuss the ways that she has accomplished this, and also address the larger issue of how African-American history fits into and enriches the American historical experience.

“THE DIMINISHING POWER OF MYTH” is a program of the C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience, an innovative forum for new scholarship about American history. Drawing on the special historical strengths of Washington College, the Center explores the early republic, the rise of democracy, and the manifold ways in which the founding era continues to shape the fabric of American culture. The Center is interdisciplinary, encouraging the study of traditional history alongside new approaches, and seeking to bridge the divide between the academic world and the public at large.

For more information about C. V. Starr Center events and programs, visit the Center online athttp://starrcenter.washcoll.edu, or call 410-810-7156.

Wingate History Lecture To Explore Slavery And The Making Of Atlantic Trade November 14

Chestertown, MD, October 31, 2002 — The Conrad M. Wingate Memorial Lecture at Washington College presents “SLAVERY IN THE MAKING OF THE ATLANTIC WORLD,” a lecture by James Walvin, Professor of History at the University of York, U.K., Thursday, November 14, 2002 at 7:30 p.m in the College's Casey Academic Center Forum. A book signing will follow this free public event.
Professor Walvin is a historian of black slavery and the Atlantic slave trade. He received his B.A. from Keele University, an M.A. from McMaster, and his D.Phil. from the University of York, where he now serves as Professor of History. Professor Walvin most recently served as a Gilder Lehrman Fellow in New York City, but is also the recipient of numerous other fellowships, including an Andrew Mellon Fellowship, a grant from the Social Science Research Centre at the Australian National University, and a fellowship in the Royal Historical Society. He is also the editor of the journal Slavery and Abolition. Professor Walvin has authored, co-authored, and edited more than thirty books on the Atlantic slave trade, English social history, and the history of football (“soccer” to Americans). His book Black and White: The Negro and English Society, 1555-1945 was the recipient of the Martin Luther King Memorial Prize in 1974, and his work Quakers: Money and Morality was named a “Notable Book” by the New York Times Book Review in 1998. Professor Walvin's latest project is Island Peoples: A History of the Caribbean, which will be published by Random House.
The Conrad M. Wingate Memorial Lecture in History is held in honor of the late Conrad Meade Wingate '23, brother of late Washington College Visitor Emeritus Phillip J. Wingate '33 and the late Carolyn Wingate Todd. He was principal of Henderson (MD) High School at the time of his death at age 27. While a student at Washington College, he was president of the Dramatic Association, president of the Adelphia Literary Society and vice president of the Student Council in 1922-23.

The Race To Save The Monitor: A Maritime History Lecture At Washington College October 10th

Chestertown, MD, September 27, 2002 — Washington College's C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience and Sultana Projects, Inc., present THE RACE TO SAVE THE MONITOR, a maritime history lecture by John Broadwater, Ph.D., Manager of the Monitor National Marine Sanctuary. The lecture will be held Thursday, October 10, 2002, at 7:30 p.m. in the College's Hynson Lounge. The event is free and the public is invited to attend.

The Civil War brought many advances in weaponry, including naval technology, and the U.S.S. Monitor represented a radical departure from traditional warship design. Powered by steam alone and constructed almost exclusively of iron, the ship's novel low-profile design, heavy armor and revolving gun turret set the stage for modern naval warfare. With the exception of her famous engagement with the Confederate ironclad Virginia at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, the Monitor's brief career was uneventful, and shortly after midnight on December 31, 1862, the Monitor sank in a gale off Cape Hatteras, lost at sea less than a year after her launch. But the Monitor did not fail to impress ship designers and naval personnel around the world: the U.S. Navy built more than 60 Monitor-type vessels during the Civil War, and similar ships were built in other countries.

Dr. Broadwater is the Chief Scientist of the Monitor Expedition 2002 and has been the Manager of the Monitor National Marine Sanctuary since 1992. A diver since 1969, Dr. Broadwater has participated in shipwreck dives and investigations throughout the United States and in more than a dozen countries. He also volunteered his services as an archaeologist for expeditions to the Monitor in 1974, 1979 and 1983. Between 1978 and 1989, as Senior Underwater Archaeologist of the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, he directed the Yorktown Shipwreck Archaeological Project, which culminated with the complete excavation of a British ship sunk during the last major battle of the American Revolution. A well-known author and lecturer, Dr. Broadwater wrote “Secrets of a Yorktown Shipwreck” for the June 1988 issue of National Geographic, and the book Kwajalein, Lagoon of Found Ships, which chronicles shipwreck investigations in the Marshall Islands. On August 5 of this year, under his direction, the Monitor Expedition successfully raised the ship's unique 160-ton turret from 240 feet of water off of Cape Hatteras. The turret is now submerged in a special tank at The Mariners' Museum in Newport News, VA, in order to slow its decay and to allow special research and preservation measures. Dr. Broadwater's lecture will describe the efforts being taken and what remains to be done to save and to preserve the historic Monitor.

Dr. Broadwater's lecture is the third in a four-part Maritime Lecture Series sponsored by the C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience in partnership with Sultana Projects, an organization that provides unique, hands-on educational experiences in colonial history and environmental science on board Chestertown's reproduction 18th Century Schooner Sultana. The series will conclude November 7, 2002, with a lecture by Lisa Norling, author of Captain Ahab Had a Wife: New England Women and the Whalefishery, 1720-1870, discussing the role of women in the American whaling industry. Look for coming announcements or contact Kees deMooy, Program Manager for the C.V. Starr Center, at 410-810-7156, or visit http://starrcenter.washcoll.edu for a complete program of events.

In Honor of Presidents' Day: Historian, Writer Daniel Aaron to Speak on the Presidents of the 20th Century

Chestertown, MD, February 1, 2002 — The C.V. Starr Center for the American Experience at Washington College, in celebration of Presidents' Day, presents "PRESIDENTIAD," a reading by Daniel Aaron, professor emeritus at Harvard University, Monday, February 18, 2002, at 4 p.m. in the College's Norman James Theatre, William Smith Hall. The event is free and the public is invited to attend.

Professor Aaron is the author of numerous works on American history and literature, including Men of Good Hope (1951), Writers on the Left (1961), The Unwritten War (1973) and American Notes (1994). He also served as the founding president of the Library of America series of classic writings by American authors.

For Washington College, Professor Aaron will read for the first time from the "Presidentiad" section of his forthcoming memoir, Circlings: A Personal History of the United States, 1912-2000. The "Presidentiad" shares reflections on every president of his lifetime, from Woodrow Wilson to the present.

The C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience at Washington College opened in Fall 2001 to encourage the broad study of American history and culture and the ways we give daily new meaning to what George Washington called "the great experiment." In keeping with the special history and character of Washington College, the Center focuses on the nation's founding moment, ideals and experiences by highlighting contemporary scholarship and research in these areas.

Goodfellow Lecture to Explore the Friendship of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams

Chestertown, MD, November 26, 2001 — Washington College and the Goodfellow Lecture Series present "A Curtain of Separation: The Friendship of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams," a lecture by Professor Barbara Oberg of Princeton University. The talk will be held Wednesday, November 28, 2001 at 7:30 p.m. in the College's Miller Library, Sophie Kerr Room. The public is invited to attend.

Oberg (Ph.D. University of California, Santa Barbara, 1974) is a lecturer with the rank of professor at Princeton and specializes in eighteenth-century Anglo-American history and the political and intellectual history of the American Revolution and early republic. She is the co-author of Benjamin Franklin, Jonathan Edwards and the Representation of American Culture (1993) and Federalists Reconsidered (1998), and she is the general editor of the Papers of Thomas Jefferson project at Princeton.

With the publication of the recent best-selling biographies of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, how should we look back on these compatriots? What common vision did they share and where did they differ? Has the pendulum swung too far away from Jefferson and has his reputation been undermined in light of recent research? Oberg's lecture will address these questions.

The Guy F. Goodfellow Memorial Lecture Series was established upon Goodfellow's death in 1989 to honor the memory of the history professor who had taught at Washington College for 30 years. The intent of the endowed lecture series is to bring a distinguished historian to campus each year to lecture and spend time with students in emulation of Dr. Goodfellow's vibrant teaching style.

Why Robert Carter Freed His Slaves: Talk to Address Misunderstood American Revolutionary

Chestertown, MD, October 22, 2001 — The C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience at Washington College presents "Forgetting Robert Carter: A Secret History of the American Revolution," a talk by Professor Andrew Levy of Butler University, at 4 p.m., Friday, October 26, 2001, at the College's Custom House on the corner of High and Water Streets, Chestertown. The event is free and the public is invited to attend. A reception will follow the talk.

Robert Carter III was one of the wealthiest and most powerful Virginians at the dawn of the American Revolution and distinguished himself by organizing the largest manumission of slaves in antebellum America. But Carter's motives have been ignored by historians and the place he holds among his fellow revolutionary Virginians has been largely a mystery. According to Professor Levy's recent article in the Spring 2001 issue of The American Scholar: "In the long history of antebellum America, no one else, while living, freed that many slaves; no one even came close. No one walked away from slaveholding and slavery with as much to lose." So why does Carter remain relatively unknown to students and experts of American history? Professor Levy's talk will address this question.

Andrew Levy is the Cooper Professor of English at Butler University in Indianapolis, IN, where he teaches American literature and creative writing and directs the Butler University Writer's Studio. Professor Levy is the author of "The Culture and Commerce of the American Short Story" (Cambridge University Press, 1993), co-author of the creative writing textbook "Creating Fiction" (Harcourt Brace, 1997), and co-editor of "Postmodern American Fiction: A Norton Anthology" (Norton, 1997). His articles have appeared in The American Scholar, Harper's, Dissent, and the Chicago Tribune.

Wingate Lecture Examines Martin Luther and the German Nation

Chestertown, MD, March 29, 2001 — Eminent historian Dr. Steven Ozment, McLean Professor of History at Harvard University, will give this year's Wingate Memorial History Lecture on Monday, April 9, at 4:30 p.m. in Washington College's Casey Academic Center Forum. The topic will be "Martin Luther and the German Nation."

Dr. Ozment is a specialist in Renaissance and Reformation Europe (1400 to 1700), and teaches courses on the historiography of Reformation Europe, the family in Northern Europe, late medieval and early modern Germany, and European civilization. His published works include The Age of Reform, When Fathers Ruled: Family Life in Reformation Europe, Three Behaim Boys: Growing Up in Early Modern Germany, Protestants: The Birth of a Revolution, The Bürgermeister's Daughter, Ancestors: The Loving Family in Old Europe, and Flesh and Spirit: Private Life in Early Modern Germany.

Praised for adding life, luster and detail to the social history of Europe, Dr. Ozment uses private journals, logs, family chronicles and letters in his historical research to provide intimate if varied views of life in previous historical and social epochs. Readers can experience history in a manner that is more personal, humane and accessible in light of contemporary values, concerns and aspirations.

The Conrad M. Wingate Memorial Lecture in History is held in honor of the late Conrad Meade Wingate '23, brother of late Washington College Visitor Emeritus Phillip J. Wingate '33 and the late Carolyn Wingate Todd. He was principal of Henderson (MD) High School at the time of his death from cerebrospinal meningitis at age 27. At Washington College, he was president of the Dramatic Association, president of the Adelphia Literary Society and vice president of the Student Council in 1922-23.

Journalist James Fallows Examines How the Media Undermines Democracy

Chestertown, MD, March 15, 2001 — James Fallows, author and former editor of U.S. News & World Report, will explore "Breaking the News: How the Media Undermines Democracy" on Tuesday, April 3, 2001, at 7:30 p.m. in Washington College's Hynson Lounge. The public is invited to attend.

Former speech writer for President Jimmy Carter, Fallows has over 20 years of experience as an editor with publications such as Atlantic Monthly and U.S. News & World Report and as a freelance journalist and writer covering American politics, foreign affairs, military policy and the computer industry. Fallows' books include More Like Us: Making America Great Again (1989), an examination of American business competition with Japan; National Defense (1981), a penetrating look at the defense establishment; and Looking at The Sun (1994), a examination of contemporary East Asian society and economics. His latest work, Breaking the News: How the Media Undermine American Democracy (1997), has drawn acclaim and inspired controversy as it sharply looks at a growing, politically-tied media elite that focuses on ideological spin over the nuances and substance critical to solving America's political and societal problems.

Fallows' talk is sponsored by Washington College's Goldstein Program in Public Affairs, now celebrating its 10th anniversary. Established in honor of the late Louis L. Goldstein, a 1935 alumnus and Maryland's longest-serving elected official, the Goldstein Program sponsors lecture series, symposia, visiting fellows, travel and other projects that bring students and faculty together with leaders experienced in developing public policy.

The Guy F. Goodfellow Memorial Lecture Series was established upon Goodfellow's death in 1989 to honor the memory of the history professor who had taught at Washington College for 30 years. The intent of the endowed lecture series is to bring a distinguished historian to campus each year to lecture and spend time with students in emulation of Dr. Goodfellow's vibrant teaching style.

Talk to Address the Civil War in the American Memory

Chestertown, MD, March 14, 2001 — Dr. David Blight, Professor of History at Amherst College, will address the topic "Healing and Justice: The Problem of the Civil War in American Memory" on Thursday, March 22, 2001, at 4:30 p.m. in the Sophie Kerr Room of Washington College's Miller Library. The free talk is sponsored by the Guy F. Goodfellow Memorial Lecture Series and the public is invited to attend.

Dr. Blight received his Ph.D. in American History from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1985. He has concentrated his studies on the Civil War, Reconstruction, African-American history, and American intellectual and cultural history. He is the author of the recently published book, Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory (Belknap Press, 2001).

Dr. Blight will examine the myths and reinterpretations of the Civil War that have been fostered in America since the end of the war and are still popularized today in American politics and society.

In an recent editorial for The Washington Post, Dr. Blight wrote: "Let us be clear about the nature of the Lost Cause and the state's rights doctrines historically tied to the Confederacy. After the Civil War, the Lost Cause took root in the South in an admixture of physical destruction, the psychological trauma of defeat, the revitalization of a Democratic Party that resisted Reconstruction, white supremacy, racial violence and--with time--an abiding sentimentalism that disseminated countless images of 'faithful' slaves. The Lost Cause also became for many white southerners a web of organizations and rituals, a civil religion that assuaged their sense of loss."

The Guy F. Goodfellow Memorial Lecture Series was established upon Goodfellow's death in 1989 to honor the memory of the history professor who had taught at Washington College for 30 years. The intent of the endowed lecture series is to bring a distinguished historian to campus each year to lecture and spend time with students in emulation of Dr. Goodfellow's vibrant teaching style.

National Book Award Winner Speaks on Andrew Jackson

Chestertown, MD — Ever the controversial figure, Andrew Jackson's success as a military leader of the Battle of New Orleans will be the subject of a lecture by Robert Remini, distinguished professor of history emeritus at the University of Illinois, Chicago. The lecture takes place at 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday March 22 in the Hynson Lounge at Washington College. Beginning at 4 p.m., preceding the lecture, Remini will sign his latest book, "The Battle of New Orleans."

Remini, who has been called "an historian in love with his subject," says that the Battle of New Orleans, fought after a peace treaty ending the War of 1812 had been ratified by Britain and the United States, "was one of the great turning points in American history" because it "produced a President and an enduring belief in the military ability of free people to protect and preserve their society and their way of life." Carlo D'Este, writing in "The New York Times Book Review," calls Remini's latest work, "an exceptional book that combines impressive scholarship with a riveting narrative." The book has also received rave reviews from readers.

Remini's three-volume biography, "Andrew Jackson," won the National Book Award and was reissued in 1998 as a Main Selection of the History Book Club. He is also the author of biographies of Henry Clay and Daniel Webster.

"Andrew Jackson and the Battle of New Orleans" is sponsored by the Washington College History Department. Washington College Phi Beta Kappa Associates, theCampus Events and Visitors Committee and the Robert Julian Emory Lecture Fund. It is free and open to the public.

Lecture Considers Washington's Attitudes Toward Death and the Afterlife

Chestertown, MD — Peter R. Henriques, a noted professor of history at George Mason University in Arlington, Va., is the guest of The Guy F. Goodfellow Memorial Lecture Series at Washington College in Chestertown. Dr. Henriques' lecture, "He Died as He Lived: George Washington's Final Struggle with the Grim King," focuses on what Washington thought about death and the afterlife in the context of his Enlightenment beliefs. Set for Thursday, Nov. 11, at 7 p.m., in the Sophie Kerr Room of Miller Library, the lecture is free and open to the public.

Henriques teaches American and Virginia history with special emphasis on Virginia and the American Revolution and the Virginia Founding Fathers. His upcoming book on Washington's death and funeral in commemoration of the bicentennial of Washington's death is to be published by the Mount Vernon Ladies Association. His other writings include "The Final Struggle between George Washington and the Grim King: Washington's Attitude toward Death and Afterlife," in "Virginia Magazine of History and Biography," Winter 1999; "Major Lawrence Washington vs. The Rev. Charles Green: A Case Study of the Squire and the Parson," in VMHB, April 1992; "An Uneven Friendship: The Relationship between George Washington and George Mason," VMHB, April 1989; "George Washington-William Payne Fight: A New Explanation," Northern Virginia Heritage, October 1983; "The Amiable George Washington," NVH, Feb. 1978.

The Guy F. Goodfellow Memorial Lecture Series was established upon Goodfellow's death in 1989 to honor the memory of the history professor who had taught at Washington College for 30 years. The intent of the endowed lecture series is to bring a distinguished historian to campus each year to lecture and spend time with students in emulation of Dr. Goodfellow's vibrant teaching style.