Lecture Date: April 12, 2012 Wind, sand, and a dream of flight brought Wilbur and Orville Wright to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina where, after four years of experimentation, they achieved the first successful tests of a heavier than air, engine-powered machine in 1903. The Wright brothers, high school dropouts who were self-taught mechanical and aeronautic […]
Lecture Date: April 10, 2012 Born into a former-slave family in 1867, Sarah Breedlove transformed herself into Madam C.J. Walker, an entrepreneur who built her empire developing hair products for black women. After the bloody East St. Louis Race Riot of 1917, Madam Walker devoted herself to having lynching made a federal crime; she later […]
Lecture Date: April 5, 2012 Lauren Redniss is a graphic biographer whose writing and drawing have appeared in the New York Times, which nominated her for the Pulitzer Prize. Her idea for a life of the Curies occurred to her because, she told the online magazine, Intelligent Life, “I had been thinking about love stories….What […]
Lecture Date: April 3, 2012 James Ewell Brown “Jeb” Stuart was the most famous Confederate cavalryman of the Civil War — and one of its most dashing figures. Born in Virginia and educated at West Point, he was a trusted associate of Robert E. Lee, leading the Army of Northern Virginia’s cavalry in important battles […]
Lecture Date: March 27, 2012 The game’s afoot when British historian and professor of history at the University of Exeter Jeremy Black elucidates the scintillating mind of Sherlock Holmes; the tenebrous character of Dr. Moriarty; and the rather obtuse Dr. Watson, who chronicled Holmes’ adventures. Professor Black analyzes Arthur Conan Doyle’s most famous character and […]
Lecture Date: March 15, 2012 Juliette Gordon Low spent several years searching for something useful to do with her life. Her search ended in 1911, when she met retired British officer Sir Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scouts and Girl Guides. On returning to the United States in 1912, she called her cousin. “Come […]
When a Great Lives speaker has also written a book, he or she is interviewed by Liz Humes, host of Wordy Birds, at the Kalnen Inn where are all Great Lives guests are invited to stay. Liz Humes is an artist, writer, radio host, activist and mother. But mostly she just likes to “read, […]
Dear Friends, As will happen from time-to-time, technology let us down. After filming author Harriet Reisen’s presentation on Louisa May Alcott, we discovered that the digital file was corrupt, unusable. This is a loss, of course. Fortunately, she gave a similar talk on C-SPAN2’s BookTV in 2009 and you can watch it here. In place […]
Contrary to legend, he never said, “There’s a sucker born every minute.” Phineas Taylor Barnum was a businessman, hoaxer, and impresario who provided entertainment to a nation hungry for it. “I am a showman by profession . . . and all the gilding shall make nothing else of me,” Barnum wrote defiantly in his autobiography. […]
Drawing on the unique historical sites, archives, expertise, and the authority of the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, bestselling authors Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colón created the first authorized and exhaustive graphic biography of Anne Frank. “More than simply poignant, this biography elucidates the complex emotional aspects of living a sequestered adolescence as a brilliant, […]
Lecture Date: February 23, 2012 Following graduation from the University of Virginia, author John A. Farrell embarked on a prize-winning career as a newspaperman, most notably for the Denver Post and the Boston Globe. His biography of Darrow— “impeccably researched, beautifully written, and timely,” said the San Francisco Chronicle— describes the career of the limelight-stealing, […]
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk is the George Washington of today’s Republic of Turkey. After he gained his military reputation by repelling the 1915 Allied invasion of the Dardanelles, he first directed Turkey’s 1920-22 “War of Salvation” and then became Turkey’s first president. He immediately embarked on a fifteen-year campaign to modernize Turkey, which included the empowering […]
Wind, sand, and a dream of flight brought Wilbur and Orville Wright to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina where, after four years of experimentation, they achieved the first successful tests of a heavier than air, engine-powered machine in 1903. The Wright brothers, high school dropouts who were self-taught mechanical and aeronautic engineers, typified the legendary ethic […]
Lecture Date: February 16, 2012 April 15, 1947, marked the most important opening day in baseball history. When Jackie Robinson stepped onto the diamond that afternoon at Ebbets Field, he became the first black man to break into major-league baseball in the 20th century. World War II had just ended; democracy had triumphed. Now Americans […]
High-definition presentations of all 2012 lectures in the Chappell Great Lives series are available for viewing online under “Archived Lectures” on the homepage of the Chappell Great Lives Lecture Series. The videos are released five weeks after the live presentation. Each presentation is full-length, about an hour, and begins with a short introduction summarizing the […]
“I am a woman who came from the cotton fields of the South. From there I was promoted to the washtub. From there I was promoted to the cook kitchen. And from there I promoted myself into the business of manufacturing hair goods and preparations…. I have built my own factory on my own ground.” […]
Lecture Date: February 14, 2012 In 1958, the sheriff of Caroline County charged into the bedroom of Richard and Mildred Loving in the dead of night and arrested them. Although legally married in Washington, Richard was white and Mildred was black, which was against the law in Virginia and 13 other states. The case on […]
Lauren Redniss is a graphic biographer whose writing and drawing have appeared in the New York Times, which nominated her for the Pulitzer Prize. Her idea for a life of the Curies occurred to her because, she told the online magazine, Intelligent Life, “I had been thinking about love stories….What struck me as an interesting […]
Lecture Date: February 9, 2012 Christopher Columbus, said a New York Times reviewer of Laurence Bergreen’s biography, was a “terribly interesting man — brilliant, audacious, volatile, paranoid, narcissistic, ruthless and (in the end) deeply unhappy.” Part explorer, part entrepreneur, part wannabe-aristocrat, Columbus initiated the most important period in Western history as a result of an […]
Lecture Date: February 7, 2012 Vice-president of the United States, brilliant attorney, duelist, and renegade leader of Western adventurers— Aaron Burr cut a path through American history that is bold, at times erratic, and highly controversial. In his fast-paced book, American Emperor: Aaron Burr’s Challenge to Jefferson’s America, historian and constitutional lawyer David O. Stewart […]