A political historian specializing in the United States from 1865 to 1900 will speak on the Mississippi State University campus Wednesday as part of the John F. and Jeanne A. Marszalek Speaker Series.
Charles W. Calhoun will give a lecture titled “The Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant: Myths and Realities.” Calhoun retired from East Carolina University in 2014 as a Thomas Harriot College Distinguished Professor of History. He has authored six books and edited four others. Calhoun is known as a leading scholar on the Gilded Age, and is the founder and past president of the Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. He spent time at MSU’s Ulysses S. Grant Presidential Library researching his latest book “The Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant.
An additional lecture titled “The Two Hirams: Hiram R. Revels, Ulysses S. Grant Party Politics and the Annexation of Santo Domingo” will be given by MSU Libraries faculty member and history doctoral student Ryan Semmes.
Semmes is writing a dissertation on Grant’s presidential foreign policy, and is coordinator of the MSU Congressional and Political Research Center.
The Marszalek Speaker Series is held in honor of MSU Giles distinguished professor of history John F. Marszalek. The series began when Marszalek and his wife approached MSU Dean of Libraries Frances Coleman with the proposal of creating a fund to purchase primary source materials annually. Coleman suggested hosting a nationally-renowned speaker each year in addition to purchasing the materials. The lecture also provides graduate students with an opportunity to present their work.
The lectures are free and open to the public, and will be located in the John Grisham Room in the MSU Mitchell Memorial Library at 2 p.m.