WILSON, N.C. – Dr. William Leuchtenburg, noted modern American history scholar and the William Rand Kenan Jr. Professor Emeritus of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will be the featured speaker at the Barton College Friends of Hackney Library spring dinner scheduled for Tuesday, April 13.
The evening’s festivities, to be held in Hardy Alumni Hall, will begin with a book signing and wine reception at 6 p.m., followed by dinner and the program at 7 p.m. Dr. Leuchtenburg plans to speak on “The South and the American Presidency.”
Tickets for the dinner event are $35 per person, with reservations accepted until April 9. Members of the Barton College Friends of Hackney Library may reserve tickets for $30 per person. Table reservations must be for a total of eight persons. Please contact Cynthia Collins at 399-6503 or fohl@barton.edu for reservations or additional information.
Dr. Leuchtenburg is recognized as one of the nation’s top experts on the United States presidency in general, and the leading national scholar on Franklin Delano Roosevelt in particular. A native of Queens, N.Y., Dr. Leuchtenburg received his bachelor’s degree from Cornell University, and his master’s and Ph.D. degrees from Columbia University. After brief teaching stints at both Smith College and Harvard University, he began his 30-year tenure on the faculty at Columbia University, where he became De Witt Clinton Professor of American History. In 2008, he received an honorary Doctor of Letters degree from Columbia. He also served as Harmsworth Professor at Oxford University. Lured to the UNC-Chapel Hill campus from Columbia in 1982, Dr. Leuchtenburg served for 20 years at UNC until his retirement in 2002. He has also served as president of three major historical organizations: the American Historical Association, the Organization of American Historians, and the Society of American Historians.
He is the author of more than a dozen books on twentieth-century American History, including “Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, 1932-1940″ and “The White House Looks South: Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Lyndon B. Johnson.” Although the majority of Dr. Leuchtenburg’s books concern FDR and the New Deal, he was asked by his longtime friend, the late Arthur Schlesinger Jr., to write his latest book, “Herbert Hoover,” as part of the American Presidents Series of biographies on all the presidents. The book was released in January 2009.
Dr. Leuchtenburg and his wife, Jean Anne, reside in Chapel Hill.
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Questions? Contact Kathy Daughety, director of public relations, at 252-399-6529 or email: kdaughety@barton.edu.