Blog Archives

LancasterHistory.org kicks off the 2017 Presidential Lecture series on Friday, September 29, 2017 with Dr. Michael F. Holt for Sink Hole: How Kansas Crises Doomed the Presidencies of Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan. Holt’s presentation will explore how the two critical changes in the United States’ rule of law, the 1854 Kansas Nebraska Act and the 1857 Dred Scott Decision, created political tripping stones that destroyed the Presidencies of the 14th and 15th Presidents of the United States. 

Michael F. Holt, Ph.D. is the Langbourne M. Williams Professor of American History Emeritus at the University of Virginia. Dr. Holt received his Bachelor of Arts at Princeton University and his doctorate at Johns Hopkins. He is the author of six books, including the award-winning The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party and By One Vote: The Disputed Presidential Election of 1876. One the United States’ most prolific and influential scholars on antebellum politics, Dr. Holt served as a keynote speaker at the 2008 President James Buchanan National Symposium at LancasterHistory.org. 

Event Information: This event takes place in Ryder Hall at LancasterHistory.org. A social gathering begins at 4pm, followed by the lecture at 4:30pm. The event is free and open to the public. Ample parking available on-site. 

On Thursday, May 18, LancasterHistory.org will welcome Winifred Woll for The Nurses of Pearl Harbor. This colloquium tells the stories of the United States Army and Navy nurses stationed at both Pearl Harbor and Oahu on December 7, 1941. A Lancaster-native, Ms. Woll’s mother, Teresa Stauffer Foster, was among the nurses stationed at Tripler Army Hospital on the day of the attacks.

Winifred Woll, a resident of Reading, PA, is the daughter of Army nurse Teresa Stauffer Foster who was a survivor of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Woll attended several national meetings of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association with her mother and met othe rmilitary nurses who were also survivors of the attack. The stories of these women became the foundation for The Nurses of Pearl Harbor. Since the last Pearl Harbor White Cap nurses died in 2013, Winifred continues to honor these women by focusing on the many accomplishments they attained in both their military and civilian lives. Many stories are told about the military men, but seldom are stories told about the women of Pearl Harbor.

Ms. Woll is currently a teacher in the Career Program at Reading Area Community College. She is also a member of the Sons and Daughters of Pearl Harbor Survivors (SDPHS).

The colloquium, The Nurses of Pearl Harbor, will take place on Thursday, May 18, 2017 in Ryder Hall at LancasterHistory.org, 230 North President Avenue, Lancaster. A speaker’s reception with refreshments will begin at 4pm, followed by the main event from 4:30-5:30pm. Pearl Harbor memorabilia will be on display for attendees to view. This event is free and open to the public.

 

On Thursday, April 20, The Edward Hand Medical Heritage Foundation, Lancaster General Health (LGH), and LancasterHistory.org will come together to present The History of Orthopedic Medicine in Lancaster County. A distinguished roster of LGH physicians are slated to speak in this panel presentation, including Doctors Gerald Rothacker Jr., Christopher Cooke, Wayne Conrad, Timothy Tymon, David Hughes, Thomas Westphal, and Paul Carroll.

This program is the second collaboration between the Edward Hand Foundation, LGH, and LancasterHistory.org to present our county’s medical history. The 2016 panel focused on the History of Cardiology.

This event will take place on Thursday, April 20, 2017, in Ryder Hall at LancasterHistory.org, 230 N President Avenue, Lancaster. A speaker’s reception with refreshments will begin at 4pm, followed by the lecture from 4:30-6pm. This event is free and open to the public.

On Thursday, April 13 LancasterHistory.org will host Dr. Carl Strikwerda to observe the 100-year anniversary of the United States’ involvement in World War I with the colloquium 100 Years: US Entry into World War I. The entry of the United States into World War I in April 1917 changed both American and world history. For the first time, the US became deeply involved in international politics as a military and economic power. Join Dr. Carl Strikwerda as he explores why the US entered The Great War, the national and global impact of our involvement, and how we can use those experiences to inform our nation’s future military decisions.

Dr. Carl J. Strikwerda is the fourteenth president of Elizabethtown College, serving since 2011, and previously served as Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at the College of William and Mary. He has served as a historical consultant to the National World War I Museum in Kansas City, Missouri, and to several colleges and universities on higher education administration. He has lectured to business groups, schools and religious organizations on World War I and the history of globalization.

The colloquium 100 Years: US Entry into World War I will take place on Thursday, April 13, 2017 in Ryder Hall at LancasterHistory.org, 230 N President Avenue, Lancaster. A speaker’s reception with refreshments will begin at 4pm, followed by the lecture from 4:30-5:30pm. This event is free and open to the public.

Horticulturist, lecturer, and John Bartram re-enactor Kirk Brown returns to LancasterHistory.org to portray Frederick Law Olmsted in a dramatic presentation on the life of the father of landscape architecture. Responsible for designing over 6,000 landscapes in North America, Olmsted’s legacy includes the grounds of The White House, Central Park in New York City, and a conservation movement that is still challenging the world today.

Kirk R. Brown is the current Treasurer of the Garden Writers Association and has served that organization in many other volunteer capacities. He is a horticulturist, world-recognized botanist, key note speaker, business lecturer, and dramatist appearing across the United States and Canada. Brown is also a recipient of the Pennsylvania Nursery and Landscape Association “Green Achiever” Award for advancing horticulture in Pennsylvania among many additional accolades. Brown last visited LancasterHistory.org in April 2016 to portray John Bartram, America’s first botanist and father of the nursery industry in the original thirteen colonies.

The colloquium Olmsted: Landscape Architect & Environmental Visionary will take place on Thursday, March 16, 2017 in Ryder Hall at LancasterHistory.org, 230 N President Avenue, Lancaster. A social gathering will begin at 4pm, followed by the lecture from 4:30-5:30pm. This event is free and open to the public.

dolores_parsilJohn Piersol McCaskey was among the first to collect and publish songs for the American public in the 19th century. Once McCaskey was able to convince Harper and Brothers publishing company that such song books would sell, his many songbooks sold in the hundreds of thousands and graced parlor pianos throughout the country. With Christmas, McCaskey’s favorite holiday, came a new host of opportunities including compiling a Christmas book, scheduling annual parties and programs for school students, and preserving the songs of the season in his music books. At this colloquium, local author Dolores Parsil will discuss McCaskey’s contributions to American music, love for the Christmas holidays, and uncanny connection to the song Jolly Old St. Nicholas.
Dolores Parsil, B.S. East Stroudsburg University, and M.A., University of Cincinnati, is a retired McCaskey High School communication arts teacher. She resides in Lancaster with her husband, Wayne. Parsil will be available before and after the lecture to sign copies of her biography of McCaskey, Lancaster’s Good Man, John Piersol McCaskey, available for purchase at the LancasterHistory.org Museum Store.
The colloquium Lancaster’s Music Man will take place on Thursday, December 15, 2016 in Ryder Hall at LancasterHistory.org, 230 North President Avenue, Lancaster. A social gathering with refreshments will begin at 4pm, followed by the lecture from 4:30-5:30pm. This event is free and open to the public.

a11m9yqucdl-_ux250_At this November colloquium, Patrick Spero, Ph.D. will discuss his new publication Frontier Country: The Politics of War in Early Pennsylvania. “In Frontier Country, Spero addresses one of the most controversial subjects in American history: the frontier. Countering the modern conception of the American frontier as an area of expansion, Spero employs the eighteenth-century meaning of the term to show colonists understood it as a vulnerable, militarized boundary. The Pennsylvania frontier, Spero argues, was constituted through conflicts not only between colonists and Native Americans but also among neighboring British colonies. These violent encounters created what Spero describes as a distinctive ‘frontier society’ on the eve of the American Revolution that transformed the once-peaceful colony of Pennsylvania into a ‘frontier county'” (Frontier Country).

Patrick Spero, Ph.D. is the Librarian and Director of the American Philosophical Society. Frontier Country is the first book written by Spero and is a volume in the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Press Early American Studies series. Previously he was the co-editor of the anthology The American Revolution Reborn: New Perspective for the 21st Century. Spero earned his Ph.D. in History at the University of Pennsylvania and has since held roles there as professor, essayist, and lecturer, specializing in the era of the American Revolution.

The colloquium Frontier Country will take place on Thursday, November 17, 2016 in Ryder Hall at LancasterHistory.org, 230 N President Avenue, Lancaster. A social gathering with refreshments and a booksigning by the author will begin at 4pm, followed by the lecture from 4:30-5:30pm. This event is free and open to the public.

diggins_wiltPublic historian and researcher Milt Diggins will discuss his new publication Stealing Freedom Along the Mason-Dixon Line: Thomas McCreary, the Notorious Slave Catcher from Maryland at this October Regional History Colloquium. “Thomas McCreary was a slave catcher and kidnapper unconcerned for the difference between the two activities. He lived in Cecil County, Maryland, the mid-point between Philadelphia, a refuge for freedom seekers, and Baltimore, a major slave market. McCreary and his community provide a close up view of the toxic effects the debate over slavery had on the country in the years leading up to the Civil War” (Diggins). Diggins’ presentation will shed light on the fascinating historical figure who earned a living hunting down escaped slaves around the Philadelphia area in the decades preceding the Civil War. McCreary’s story collides with Lancaster’s at the Christiana Resistance and its aftermath.

Milt Diggins, M.ed., is an independent scholar, author, public historian, and lecturer from Cecil County, Maryland. He serves on the Historical Society of Cecil County Board of Trustees and has taught in the county’s public school and community college. Stealing Freedom is Diggins’ second book, after Images of America: Cecil County. He has also been published in Cecil Historical JournalMaryland Historical Magazine, and Cecil Whig.

The colloquium Stealing Freedom Along the Mason-Dixon Line will take place on Thursday, October 27, 2016 in Ryder Hall at LancasterHistory.org, 230 N President Avenue, Lancaster. A social gathering with refreshments and a booksigning by the author will begin at 4pm, followed by the lecture from 4:30-5:30pm. This event is free and open to the public.

kahan_paulFor the first Regional History Colloquium of the 2016-2017 Series, LancasterHistory.org welcomes Paul Kahan, Ph.D. who will present a lecture on his most recent publication Amiable Scoundrel: Simon Cameron, Lincoln’s Scandalous Secretary of War. From abject poverty to undisputed political boss of Pennsylvania, Lincoln’s Secretary of War, senator, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and a founder of the Republican Party, Simon Cameron was one of the 19th-century’s most prominent political figures. In his wake, however, he left a series of questionable political and business dealings, and, at the age of eighty, even a sex scandal.

Paul Kahan, Ph.D. is a lecturer at Ohlone College in Fremont, California. He earned a Ph.D. in U.S. History from Temple University. Amiable Scoundrel is Kahan’s fourth book, after Eastern State Penitentiary: A HistorySeminary of Virtue: The Ideology and Practice of Inmate Reform at Eastern State Penitentiary, 1829-1971; and The Homestead Strike: Labor, Violence, and American Industry.

The colloquium Amiable Scoundrel will take place on Thursday, September 29, 2016 in Ryder Hall at LancasterHistory.org, 230 N President Avenue, Lancaster. A social gathering with refreshments and booksigning by the author will begin at 4pm, followed by the lecture from 4:30-5:30pm. This event is free and open to the public.

Buffalo Bill Parading through LancasterLancastrians loved William F. Cody, famously known as “Buffalo Bill Cody.” They flocked to outdoor arenas when his “Wild West Shows” came to town, and packed the Fulton Opera House for his premiere in 1873. But when Cody took the Fulton stage in a show about killing Indians on the western frontier, he was standing in the same spot where the Paxton gang murdered the last of the Conestoga Indians 110 years ago. Leslie Stainton, author of Staging Ground, and Jack Brubaker, LNP’s The Scribbler, explore this uncanny connection in this colloquium. Buffalo Bill Cody’s popularity in Lancaster and across the United States said much about the way Americans grappled with the turbulent history of native and non-native American relations in the 19th century.

Leslie Stainton is the author of Staging Ground: An American Theater and Its Ghosts (Penn State Press, 2014) and Lorca: A Dream of Life (Bloomsbury, 1998; Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999). A two-time Fulbright award recipient, Stainton holds a B.A. in drama from Franklin & Marshall College and an MFA in dramaturgy from the University of Massachusetts. Jack Brubaker has written The Scribbler, a LNP column exploring the history, culture and humor of Lancaster County, for more than three decades. He has also authored a dozen historical books and magazine articles including Massacre of the Conestogas and Remembering Lancaster County (History Press, 2010).

The colloquium Buffalo Bill in Lancaster will take place on Thursday, May 12, 2016 in Ryder Hall at LancasterHistory.org, 230 N President Avenue, Lancaster. A social gathering will begin at 4pm, followed by the lecture from 4:30-5:30pm. Stainton and Brubaker will be available to sign copies of their various books at 4pm during the social. This event is free and open to the public.