November 12-15, 2006

 

Richard Norton Smith, award-winning presidential historian and former director of five presidential libraries, visited Grand Rapids as a Hauenstein Center Scholar in Residence. He delivered seven talks on American presidents from November 12-15.

Schedule of Events:

• 11/12 Does Character Count?
• 11/13 The Surprising George Washington
• 11/13 The Fiery Trial of Abraham Lincoln
• 11/14 The Gold in the Gilded Age
• 11/14 Theodore Roosevelt and the Billy Pulpit
• 11/15 Wilson and the Law of Unintended Consequences
• 11/15 Roosevelt and Reagan: Eternal Optimists

Norton Smith was director of the Gerald R. Ford Library and Museum for more than five years from 1996-2001. His lively accounts of presidential and other history have made him a familiar face to viewers of C-SPAN, as well as The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. As founding director of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Illinois, and before that as director of the Hoover, Eisenhower, Reagan and Ford libraries, Smith has introduced millions of visitors to a history rarely glimpsed in textbooks.