October 24, 2007

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

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.