Lecture Series

Author Ralph Lindeman discusses his book Confederates from Canada: John Yates Beall and the Rebel Raids on the Great Lakes (McFarland & Company, 2023), winner of the BGSU Center for Archival Collections' 2024 Local History Publication Award in the Professional Division's Book Category.

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Barbara Floyd, Toledo historian and former director of the Ward M. Canaday Center for Special Collections at the University of Toledo, speaks about her book An Institution for the Promoting of Knowledge: The University of Toledo at 150 (University of Toledo Press, 2022), winner of the CAC’s Local History Publication Award in the Professional Division's Book Category for the year 2022.

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Emily Rinaman, Technical Services Manager at the Tiffin-Seneca Public Library, discusses the Seneca Strolls blog she created and writes for the T-SPL. Rinaman's blog post, "Let's Band Together," about the history of community bands in Tiffin, Ohio, was the winner of the CAC's Local History Publication Award in the Independent Division's Article Category for the year 2022.

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Author John Kropf discusses his book Color Capital of the World: Growing Up with the Legacy of a Crayon Company (University of Akron Press, 2022), winner of the CAC’s Local History Publication Award in the Independent Division's Book Category for the year 2022. Kropf tells the story of the rise and fall of the American Crayon Company of Sandusky, Ohio throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

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Dr. Perry Bush, Emeriti Professor of History at Bluffton University, discusses his article "'We Have Them Whipped Here': Lynching and the Rule of Law in Lima, Ohio" (Ohio History, Volume 128, Number 2, Fall 2021), winner of the CAC’s Local History Publication Award in the Professional Division's Article Category for the year 2021. Dr. Bush relays the little-known story of the attempted mob lynching of Charles Daniels, a Black man accused of sexually assaulting a white woman, in Lima in August 1916.

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Kasandra Fager, a graduate student in BGSU's Department of History, discusses her article "Farmers, Crop Yields, and Urbanization: The Growth of Section 13 in Plain Township, Ohio 1820-2020," published in the Fall/Winter 2021-22 edition of Northwest Ohio History and winner of the CAC’s Local History Publication Award in the Independent Division's Article Category for the year 2021. Fager explores the history of land use in Northwest Ohio by following the progression of one plot of land in Plain Township, Ohio.

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Tedd Long presents on his book Forgotten Visitors: Northwest Ohio's Notable Guests (Toledo, Ohio: University of Toledo Press, 2020), one of the 2020 winners of the CAC's annual Local History Publication Award in the Independent Scholar category.  Long's presentation particularly focuses on one of his favorite stories from Forgotten Visitors, that of author and humorist Mark Twain's visit to Toledo during his 1869 lecture tour.

Tedd Long is a local history storyteller living in Toledo, Ohio, and is the creator of the website Holy Toledo History featuring his local history books, blog posts, and audio tours, as well as his nature photography.

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Author Joseph Boggs discusses his book Prohibition’s Proving Ground: Cops, Cars, & Rumrunners in the Toledo-Detroit-Windsor Corridor (Toledo, Ohio: University of Toledo Press, 2020), the 2020 winner of the CAC's annual Local History Publication Award in the Academic Scholar category.  Boggs's book tells the story of how a thriving automobile culture in the Toledo-Detroit-Windsor region was central to both the enforcement and defiance of Prohibition in the early decades of the twentieth century.

Joseph Boggs received his Master of Arts degree in History at Bowling Green State University.  He is a resident of Monroe, Michigan, and teaches history at the Penta Career Center in Perrysburg, Ohio.

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Judy Harris Szor discusses her book Sam Szor: Toledo's Mr. Music (Toledo, Ohio: University of Toledo Press, 2020), one of the 2020 winners of the CAC's annual Local History Publication Award in the Independent Scholar category.  Harris Szor particularly focuses her lecture on the background details of how her book project came to fruition, and the process of finding, organizing, and using an abundance of sources to write a comprehensive and professional biography of her late husband and renowned Toledo musician, conductor, and music educator.

Judy Harris Szor had a decades-long career as a nursing educator, clinical nurse specialist, and consultant in Toledo before retiring in 2015.  She received a BSN from the University of Michigan, an MEd from the University of Toledo, and an MSN from Medical College of Ohio.

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In this lecture, authors Patricia Beach, Susan Eisel, Maria Nowicki, Judy Szor, and Beth White discuss their book Caps, Capes, and Caring: The Legacy of Diploma Nursing Schools in Toledo (Toledo, Ohio: The University of Toledo Press, 2018), and as well as how they went about jointly conducting historical research and oral history interviews with nursing school alumni. Caps, Capes, and Caring was one of the 2018 winners of the CAC's annual Local History Publication Award in the Independent Scholar category.

The authors of Caps, Capes, and Caring, all themselves graduates of Toledo diploma nursing schools, have enjoyed distinguished decades-long careers as nurses and/or nursing educators in Toledo.

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In this special event sponsored by the CAC and the BGSU Department of History, Lori Watanabe Saginaw shares the history of Japanese incarceration in the United States during World War II, from the forced removal of Japanese Americans from their homes to daily life in the prison camps. Lori is joined by her mother, May Watanabe, and Alice Sano, both of whom were imprisoned with their families during the war and provide firsthand accounts of their experiences.

A third-generation Japanese American, Lori Watanabe Saginaw is a practitioner and promoter of race dialogue.

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In this lecture, Dr. Rebecca Mancuso, Associate Professor of History at BGSU, discusses her article "The Finger Saga: One Museum's Quest to Turn the Macabre into the Meaningful" in the journal The Public Historian (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, May 2018), about the Wood County Museum's exhibition on the murder of Mary Bach by her husband Carl in rural Wood County in 1881. Dr. Mancuso's article was the 2018 winner of the CAC's annual Local History Publication Award in the Academic Scholar category.

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In this lecture at the Islamic Center of Greater Toledo (ICGT), Dr. S. Amjad Hussain provides an overview of the ICGT's history. The lecture was presented as part of a public program jointly sponsored by the CAC and the ICGT and funded in part by a Common Heritage grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities awarded to the CAC in 2018.

A Toledo-based surgeon and writer originally from Pakistan, Dr. S. Amjad Hussain holds an emeritus professorship in cardio-thoracic surgery in the College of Medicine and Life Sciences and an emeritus professorship in humanities in the College of Arts and Letters at The University of Toledo. He has published nineteen books on a range of subjects and is an op-ed columnist for the Toledo Blade.

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Dr. S. Amjad Hussain's lecture was made possible in part by a Common Heritage grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.  Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this lecture do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

In this lecture, authors Jim Brown and Jim Semon, Sr. discuss the work of photographer Ernst Niebergall as highlighted in their work Sandusky's Photographer: The Real Photo Postcards of Ernst Niebergall (Sandusky, Ohio: Firelands Postcard Club, 2018), one of the 2018 winners of the CAC's annual Local History Publication Award in the Independent Scholar category.

Jeff Brown received a BA in history from Muskingum College and an MA in anthropology and archeology from Kent State University, and is now retired from the State Historic Preservation Office of Ohio. Jim Semon, Sr. studied industrial design at Kent State university and graphic design and typography at the Cleveland Institute of Art, and is now retired from American Greetings Corporation.

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Author Dan Masters presented a lecture on his book Sherman’s Praetorian Guard: Civil War Letters of John McIntyre Lemmon, 72nd Ohio Volunteer Infantry (lulu.com, 2017), the 2017 winner of the CAC's annual Local History Publication Award in the Independent Scholar category.

Dan Masters is a graduate of the University of Toledo with a Bachelor's degree in Communications, and BGSU with a graduate degree in American History. He has actively engaged in Civil War research for 19 years and has published four books and a dozen articles regarding military history with a focus on the Civil War, World War II, and civil defense.

Author Roger Pickenpaugh presented a lecture on his book Johnson’s Island: A Prison for Confederate Officers (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 2016), the 2016 winner of the CAC's annual Local History Publication Award in the Independent Scholar category.

Pickenpaugh recently retired after a 30-year teaching career at Shenandoah Middle School in Sarahsville, Ohio. His books have focused mainly on outstanding Ohio weather events and the Civil War. He has devoted a great amount of study to the topic of Civil War prisons.

Author Kyle Kondik presented a lecture on his book The Bellwether: Why Ohio Picks the President (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 2016), the 2016 winner of the CAC's annual Local History Publication Award in the Academic Scholar category.

Kondik is among the nation's top analysts of US House elections. He is the managing editor of Sabato's Crystal Ball, a nonpartisan election forecasting newsletter published by the University of Virginia Center for Politics.

Author Barbara Floyd presented a lecture on her book The Glass City: Toledo and the Industry That Built It (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2014), the 2015 winner of the CAC's annual Local History Publication Award in the Academic Scholar category.

Barbara Floyd recently retired as director of the Ward M. Canaday Center for Special Collections and university archivist at the University of Toledo. She worked at UT for 31 years, and prior to that, worked in the manuscripts and state archives departments of the Ohio Historical Society.