OWU President Matt vandenBerg (standing) with Richard Smith and his wife Betty (both seated)
Dr. Smith has actively promoted the importance of learning history from the first time he stepped onto Ohio Wesleyan's campus as a professor in 1950 to his current role as an emeritus professor. Dr. Smith's remarkable legacy includes no fewer than 18 of his former students having continued their education through the doctoral level. For all of his students, Dr. Smith succeeded in instilling in them a life long love of learning and history. He remains a role model having published his book: Bishop McIlvaine, Slavery, Britain & the Civil War in 2014. His former students created The Richard W. Smith Lecture in Civil War History in Dr. Smith's honor to educate students and the public about the Civil War.
Past Lectures
2023 – A Tale of Two Slave Traders: Lincoln and the Destruction of the Transatlantic Slave Trade – Jonathan W. White, Ph.D. Stream OWU Video | Press Release
2023 – The Howling Storm: Weather, Climate, and the American Civil War – Kenneth W. Noe, Ph.D. Stream OWU Video | Press Release
2022 – An End or Beginning: Lee's Army After Appomattox – Caroline E. Janney, Ph.D. Stream OWU Video | Press Release
2021 – General William S. Rosecrans and the Pitfalls of Command – Mark Grimsley, Ph.D. Stream OWU Video | Press Release
2020 – No Lecture due to COVID-19
2019 – Generalship and Army Culture: A Study of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia and the Union Army of the Potomac – Joseph T. Glatthaar, Ph.D. Press Release
2018 – The Transformative Fourteenth Amendment: The Constitutional Amendment That Reshaped America – Michael Les Benedict, Ph.D. Stream OWU Video | Press Release
2016 – "Every Man Looked like a Soldier:" The U.S. Colored Troops and the Civil War – John David Smith, Ph.D. Press Release
2015 – The Final Battles of 1865 and the Ongoing Civil War – Peter Carmichael, Ph.D. Press Release
2013 – Gettysburg: The Waterloo of the Rebellion – Allen C. Guelzo, Ph.D. Press Release
2012 – The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and AmericanSlavery – Eric Foner, Ph.D. Press Release
2011 – Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief – James McPherson, Ph.D.
2010 – The Many Lives of Mary Todd Lincoln – Jean H. Baker, Ph.D.
2008 – 'The Judgements of the Lord Are True and Righteous Altogether.' Abraham Lincoln, God and the American Civil War – Richard J. Carwardine, Ph.D.
2006 – Rich Man's War, a Poor Man's Fight? Soldiers in General Robert E. Lee's Army – Joseph T. Glatthaar, Ph.D.
2005 – Ulysses S. Grant's Legacy: Yesterday and Today – John Y. Simon, Ph.D.
2004 – The Problem of Slavery and the Civil War in American Memory – David W. Blight, Ph.D.
2003 – A Contested Historical Landscape: Understanding and Interpreting the Civil War – Gary W. Gallagher, Ph.D.
2002 – The Global Impact of the American Civil War – James M. McPherson, Ph.D.
Historical Interview with Dr. Smith
(shown at the October 26, 2023 Smith Lecture)
Robert Kragalott Lecture on Genocide, Mass Atrocity, and Human Rights
Ohio Wesleyan's annual Kragalott Lecture honors the career, contributions, and memory of Robert Kragalott, Ph.D., a professor in the OWU Department of History from 1964 to 1991. The lecture series was endowed with a gift from 1969 OWU graduate Carroll P. "Pete" Kakel III, Ph.D.
The most recent lecture took place on Thursday, April 11, 2024 at 7 p.m. in the Benes Rooms of the Hamilton Williams Campus Center:
How and Why Did Genocide Become the "Crime of Crimes"?
A. Dirk Moses is the Anne and Bernard Spitzer Professor of International Relations at the City College of New York CUNY. He is the author and editor of publications on genocide and memory, including The Problems of Genocide: Permanent Security and the Language of Transgression (2021). He is senior editor of the Journal of Genocide Research.
Joseph & Edith Vogel Lecture
The Joseph & Edith Vogel Lecture was established in 1985 through a generous gift from Professor Ezra F. Vogel '50, a distinguished alumnus of Ohio Wesleyan University and a native of Delaware, Ohio. The lecture is named in honor of his parents and the lecture is "to promote among Ohio Wesleyan faculty, staff, and students, better understanding of Delaware and the surrounding area."
2022 – James Weber's OWU Experience 1868-1871 – Ellen Arnold, Ph.D. *Includes memorial video for Dr. Ezra F. Vogel Stream OWU Video | Press Release
2019 – From Delaware to Deng Xiaoping – Ezra F. Vogel, Ph.D. Press Release
2019 – 'A Vast Change Had Come Over the Streets': The Postwar Lives of World War I Veterans in Columbus, Ohio – Julie Mujic, Ph.D. Stream OWU Video | Press Release
2018 – Notable and Notorious: Ohio and the 14th Amendment – Barbara Terzian, Ph.D. Press Release
2017 – "Axis Sally" Ohio Wesleyan's Most Notorious and Least Understood Alum – Michael W. Flamm, Ph.D. Stream OWU Video | Press Release
2016 – One Room School Houses and the Search for a Democratic Past - Campbell Scribner, Ph.D.
2015 – Where the River Burned - David Stadling, Ph.D.
2014 – Delaware's Whiskey War, 1874: Women, Power, and Public Space - Tim Prindle, OWU '12
2013 – Hometown Delaware: The Power of Place - E. Fred Carlisle, Ph.D.
2012 – La Travesia a Delaware y Columbus (The Journey to Delaware and Columbus): A Look at Mexican Migration to Central Ohio – Bob Gitter, Ph.D.
2011 – Immigrantification: Global Immigration and Landscape Changes - The Revitalization of the Morse Road Corridor in Columbus, Ohio – David Walker, Ph.D.
2010 – From Memory to History: Ohio Wesleyan in the late 1960s – Pete Kakel, Ph.D.
2009 – Shades of Color: African Americans' Rights in 19th Century Ohio – Barbara Terzian, Ph.D.
2008 – Delaware: A Bicentennial Remembrance – Mr. Ed Lentz
2007 – Stories I've Heard from the People I've Met" - Life in Delaware, Ohio – Mr. Brent Carson
2006 – The Mysterious Disappearance of Pottersburg, OH: The Case of James Rhodes, Honda, and Globalization - Russ Coil, Ph.D.
2005 – Ohio Wesleyan in a Time of Controversy: The Korean War – Lloyd Gardner, Ph.D.
2004 – Understanding the Buckeye State: Ohio at 220 Years – George W. Knepper, Ph.D.
2003 – The Rise of China and Ohio Wesleyan – Ezra F. Vogle, Ph.D.
2002 – Town and Gown: Delaware, Ohio Wesleyan, and Nineteenth-Century Midwestern Higher Education– Kenneth H. Wheeler, Ph.D.
2001 – A President and His Times: Rutherford B. Hayes and the Historians– John Weaver, Ph.D.
1999 – Unsung Heroines of the Home Front: Delaware County Women and WW II– Carole Gregory Doubikin
1998 – The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly: Ohio's First Ladies and their Contributions to America– Cheryl Heckler-Feltz
1997 – If the Court Please! A Little History of the Courthouse Facilities and Several of the Jurists - Judge Henry E. Shaw, Jr.
1996 – More than Recipes: Our Community Cooks and Their Stories - Anne Bower, Ph.D.
1995 – The Ladies' Repository and Family Values - Paul Kostyu, Ph.D.
1994 – Drake's Defeat: Meanings of a Frontier Prank - Andrew Cayton, Ph.D.
1994 – Down at the Depot: Portrait of Delaware, Ohio as a Railroad Town - David Hickcox, Ph.D.
1992 – Indians in Delaware County from Pre-historic Times to 1842 - Anna Macias, Ph.D.
1992 – The Church and the College at Delaware: The Life and Times of Fredrick Merrick - Blake Michael, Ph.D.
1991 – Delaware County with a German Accent - Loyd Easton, Ph.D.
1990 – Growing Up in Delaware in the 1930s and 1940s - Ezra F. Vogel, Ph.D.
1989 – How Firm Our Foundation: One-Half Billion Years of Delaware History - Robert E. Shanklin, Ph.D.
1988 – Delaware and the Wider World: City Planning and Residential Architecture from 1800 to Present - Richard Fusch, Ph.D.
1987 – A Peek at the Past: A 'Postcard' View of Delaware's Past - George & Marilyn Cryder
1986 – Delaware County in the Election of 1822: James Kilbourne and New Political Configurations in an Era of Change - Paul C. Bowers, Ph.D.
1985 – Delaware County Politics During the Civil War Era - Richard W. Smith, Ph.D.
Department Contact Info
Location
Elliott Hall 110
Ohio Wesleyan University
61 S. Sandusky Street
Delaware, OH 43015
How and Why Did Genocide Become the "Crime of Crimes"?