David Stradling, professor of urban and environmental history at the University of Cincinnati, describes the city of Cleveland’s late 1960s and early 1970s efforts to improve water quality in Lake Erie. Engineers proposed a variety of solutions, some of them remarkably fanciful, even as the persistence of combined sewers ensured lasting – and ongoing – pollution problems. This event is ... Read More
Join archaeologist Brad Lepper for a discussion of how humans became active agents in a changing climate. Humans first entered the Ohio Valley sometime after 20,000 years ago. These hardy American Indian pioneers adapted to the New World they found and, over the succeeding millennia, shaped many aspects of their environment. Through forest clearing along with selective weeding and planting ... Read More
The Auglaize County Historical Society will present The Newark “Holy Stones”: Science, Politics, and Religion in 19th Century Ohio with Bradley Lepper as a Facebook Live event on Thursday, Jan. 26, at 7 p.m. The program is free and open to the public, and is made possible by the Ohio Humanities Council’s Speakers Bureau. The “Holy Stones” are a series ... Read More
Serpent Mound in Adams County is one of the largest and most spectacular earthen sculptures in the world. The age of the serpent is a subject of current debate with some archaeologists arguing that it was built by the Adena culture at around 300 B.C.E. and others favoring the Fort Ancient culture at around 1100 C.E. Although much about Serpent ... Read More
Come see Tom O'Grady, a member of Ohio Humanities Speakers' Bureau, give a talk on the legacy of barn architecture at Trinity Lutheran Church in Delta, Ohio! Culture groups migrating from New England, Middle Atlantic states and from the South settled in various regions of Ohio, and their distinct farms and barns can be observed when travelling throughout the state. ... Read More
Attend the "Letters from Home: Ohioans & Their Wartime Correspondence" program at the Local History Center on Monday, May 15th at 5pm. Speaker Kelly D. Mezurek will talk on how letters served as the main source of communications between soldiers, nurses, and other military support personnel and their communities during the American wars of the 18th through mid-20th centuries. This ... Read More
Come visit the Rowfant Club for an Ohio Humanities' Speakers' Bureau event with Brad Lepper! The Newark Earthworks are the largest set of geometric enclosures and mounds in the world. The work of the Hopewell people who lived in Ohio circa A.D. 1- 400, these geometric earthworks covered nearly five square miles, using more than seven million cubic feet of ... Read More
The 1989 discovery of this giant, ancient elephant-like creature opened an unprecedented window onto Ohio’s Ice Age. Archaeologists, biologists, and geologists studied the mastodon’s nearly complete remains (including its last meal) and other Ice Age animals and plants. This presentation will describe their findings and address the question of whether ancient human hunters or environmental changes drove mastodons into extinction. ... Read More
A light-hearted talk about the travel narratives of John May's journey to the Ohio Country. In comparing the modern-day luxuries of travel to the difficulties of nineteenth-century travel, this talk provides perspective on what settlers had to overcome in order to make it to their destination. Listeners will receive insight about what it was like to meet new people in ... Read More
Come visit the Upper Arlington Public Library for an Ohio Humanities Speakers' Bureau event with Tom O'Grady! Culture groups migrating from New England, Middle Atlantic states and from the South settled in various regions of Ohio, and their distinct farms and barns can be observed when travelling throughout the state. The barn builders have left an architectural legacy throughout rural ... Read More
Come visit the Dayton Metro Library's Doren Branch for an Ohio Humanities' Speakers Bureau event with Carol Lasser! In the final years of the suffrage struggle, Ohio women’s efforts to gain the vote took place in a national movement that accepted the regional disenfranchisement of African Americans as part of a bargain to overcome Southern resistance. Yet in Ohio, the ... Read More
