Established in 1992, the Klement Lecture brings to campus distinguished scholars in American history. Originally devoted to the history of the sectional conflict, the series now includes all fields of American history. Frank L. Klement, who died in 1994 at the age of 86, received his Ph.D. in History from the University of Wisconsin in 1946. He taught briefly at Lake Forest College and at Eau Claire State Teachers College before joining the history department at Marquette University in 1948. Before his retirement twenty-seven years later with the rank of Professor Emeritus, Frank served as department chair from 1956-1958 and received the Award for Teaching Excellence in 1965. He also served as President of Phi Alpha Theta, the International Honor Society for History (1973-1974), as President of the Lincoln Fellowship of Wisconsin (1960), in many official capacities for the Civil War Round Table of Milwaukee, and on numerous editorial boards and national committees. Prof. Klement's scholarship focused on the Civil War era, particularly on northern dissenters. He authored over fifty articles and chapters in books and dozens of book reviews, but his best known works are The Copperheads in the Middle West (1960), The Limits of Dissent: Clement L. Vallandigham and the Civil War (1970), and Dark Lanterns: Secret Political Societies, Conspiracies, and Treason Trials in the Civil War (1984). Although they are no longer published, the first dozen or so lectures can be ordered online through Marquette University Press. In 2008, an anthology of a many of the lectures was published by Kent State University Press under the title "More than a Contest Between Armies: Essays on the Civil War Era," edited by A. Kristen Foster and James Marten.
2008-2009
Patricia Limerick, University of Colorado at Boulder
Title: "The Ownership of the Public Lands: The Romance of Local Control meets the Romance of Expertise"
Tuesday, March 24, 2009, 7:30 PM, Weasler Auditorium
Patricia Limerick is professor of history at the University of Colorado at Boulder. In addition to her selection as a MacArthur fellow—the so-called "genius awards—she has served on a number of advisory boards and committees, including Ken Burn's and Stephen Ives's eight-part PBS series, "The West". She has published many books, articles, and reviews, but her best known work is The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West (1979). In addition to numerous scholarly articles and book reviews, she writes frequent columns and op-ed pieces for a variety of news sources. Her recent books include Something in the Soil (2000) and The Atomic West, (in progress). She has also been president of the American Studies Association and the Western History Association. Find out more at the Web site for the Center for the American West
2007-2008
Nina Silber
"Why Northern Women Matter for Understanding the Civil War"
2006-2007
Stephen Engle
"All the President's Statesmen: Union Governors and the Civil War"
2005-2006
Lesley J. Gordon
"'I Never was a Coward': Questions of Bravery in a Civil War Regiment"
2004-2005
William Blair
"Why didn't the North hang some rebels? The postwar debate over punishment for treason"
2003-2004
Joan Waugh
"Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant: A History of the Union Cause"
2002-2003
J. Matthew Gallman
"'Touched with Fire?': Two Philadelphia Novelists Remember the Civil War"
2001-2002
David Blight
"Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass: A Relationship in Language, Politics, and Memory"
2000-2001
George Rable
"News from Fredericksburg"
1999-2000
Catherine Clinton
"Public Women and the Confederacy"
1998-1999
Phillip Paludan
"War and Home: The Civil War Encounter"
1997-1998
Edward L. Ayers
"Momentous Events in Small Places: The Coming of the Civil War in Two American Communities"
1996-1997
John Y. Simon
"Grant and Halleck: Contrasts in Command"
1995-1996
Gary W. Gallagher
"Jubal A. Early, The Lost Cause, and Civil War History"
1994-1995
Robert W. Johannsen
"The 'Wicked Rebellion' and the Republic: Henry Tuckerman's Civil War"
1993-1994
Richard Nelson Current
"What Is An American? Abraham Lincoln and 'Multiculturalism'"
1992-1993
Mark E. Neely, Jr.
"Confederate Bastille: Jefferson Davis and Civil Liberties"
