The Benjamin Harrison Presidential Site Presented
An Evening with Richard Norton Smith
On Thursday, September 15, 2011

Photography by Jennifer Capps

The 6th Annual Mary Tucker Jasper Speaker Series Sponsored by:

One of the nation's best-known historians, Richard Norton Smith, delighted an audience of 225 with a talk entitled "Why History Matters." The Presidential scholar was full of praise, not only for Benjamin Harrison, but also for the home on Delaware Street. He called it a "model of its kind," congratulating the staff and volunteers for making history more alive and relevant to the 21st century. As for Harrison himself, Smith described the Hoosier lawyer as a "legislative President with a stubborn streak," admiring him for the courage to challenge the party patronage system and for pushing hard for the rights of African-Americans. Smith's insightful and witty comments on the American Presidency were punctuated by laughter and applause from an appreciative audience. A private reception was held at the Benjamin Harrison Presidential Site, followed by dinner and presentation at the Columbia Club.

For those who purchased tickets to this event, we are pleased to provide a tax deduction form.

As part of the Mary Tucker Jasper Speaker Series dinner program, the Benjamin Harrison Presidential Site presented the 2011 Advancing American Democracy Award to former United States Representative Lee Hamilton. Hamilton represented Indiana's 9th Congressional District from 1965 to 1999. U.S. Representative Todd Young--who currently holds this seat--graciously presented Hamilton with the prestigious medal. After leaving Congress, Lee Hamilton served on a number of governmental advisory boards, including the crucial position as vice chairman of the 9/11 Commission. The award recognizes an individual who advances the values of American democracy by encouraging and enabling ethical citizen participation in government. The Honorable Senator Richard G. Lugar was the recipient in 2010 of the inaugural award.

A copy of the printed event program can be found by clicking here.

Richard Norton Smith is a nationally renowned author, speechwriter and presidential historian, whose unstuffy approach to the past, combined with his trademark humor, flavors the commentary he provided regularly on C-SPAN and The Newshour with Jim Lehrer. Graduating magna cum laude from Harvard University, Smith has worked for the White House, as a freelance writer for The Washington Post, as a speechwriter for Massachusetts Senator Edward Brooke, and later for Senator Bob Dole, with whom he has collaborated on numerous projects over the years.

Mr. Smith’s first major book, Thomas E. Dewey and His Times, was a finalist for the 1983 Pulitzer Prize. He has also written An Uncommon Man: The Triumph of Herbert Hoover, The Harvard Century: The Making of a University to a Nation and Patriarch: George Washington and the New American Nation. In June 1997, Houghton Mifflin published Smith’s The Colonel: The Life and Legend of Robert R. McCormick, which received the prestigious Goldsmith Prize awarded by Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School, and has been described by Hilton Kramer as “the best book ever written about the press.” Currently Mr. Smith is at work on a biography of Nelson Rockefeller.

Between 1987 and 2001, Smith served as Director of the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum in West Branch, Iowa; the Dwight D. Eisenhower Center in Abilene, Kansas; the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation, the Reagan Center for Public Affairs in Simi Valley, California; and the Gerald R. Ford Museum and Library in Grand Rapids and Ann Arbor, Michigan, respectively. In 2001, Smith became director of the Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics at the University of Kansas. In October 2003, he was appointed Founding Director of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Illinois. During this same period, he also served as Executive Director of a revitalized Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library Foundation, which doubled its endowment under his leadership. Mr. Smith is presently a Scholar-in-Residence of History and Public Policy at George Mason University in suburban Washington, D.C.

Evening’s Agenda

Of note: Tickets and sponsorship opportunities for the 2011 event are now available. For more information or to be added to the invitation mailing list, please e-mail Erin Trisler or call 317-631-1888.  Please click here for a copy of the event "save the date" postcard.