October 21-24, 2007

 

Award-winning presidential historian Richard Norton Smith visited Grand Rapids as a Hauenstein Center for Presidential Studies Scholar-in-Residence.
Smith gave seven talks on American presidents from October 21-24. The first six speeches were held at Grand Valley State University’s Pew Grand Rapids Campus. The final lecture was at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum.

“There’s no excuse for a dull book, a dull museum or a dull speech, especially when dealing with history — the most fascinating subject I know,” said Smith.

Smith’s accounts of presidential history have made him a familiar face to viewers of C-SPAN, as well as The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, where he appears regularly as part of the show’s round table of historians. 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, if ever, glimpsed in textbooks.

Schedule of events:

Sunday, October 21
Loosemore Auditorium: Presidents at War. (There is a $10 charge to attend this event. Students under 25 with student ID and driver’s license get in free. All other events are free.)

Monday, October 22
11 a.m. – Loosemore Auditorium: Like Father, Like Son: The Adamses of Massachusetts
2 p.m. – Loosemore Auditorium: Presidential Lies

Tuesday, October 23
11 a.m. – Loosemore Auditorium: Three for Virginia: Jefferson, Madison and Monroe
2 p.m. – Loosemore Auditorium: Calvin, We Hardly Knew Ye

Wednesday, October 24
11 a.m. – Meijer Regency Room, GVSU: The Odd Couple: Hoover and Truman
7:30 p.m. – Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum: Gerald Ford of Michigan