Stephen Ambrose Memorial Lecture
The Lewis & Clark Library Foundation honors the memory of the late historian, Stephen E. Ambrose, by hosting this annual lecture each fall.
Stephen Edward Ambrose (January 10, 1936 – October 13, 2002) was an American historian and biographer of U.S. Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard Nixon. He was a longtime professor of history at the University of New Orleans and the author of many bestselling volumes of American popular history, including Undaunted Courage (1997) about the Lewis & Clark Expedition. He and his family eventually settled in Helena, MT, where the Ambrose family became devoted patrons of the public library. His family graciously lent their late father's name to the Foundation's annual lecture. (Wikipedia)
2024 Ambrose Lecture: Peter Stark
When Ohio was “the West” -- Washington, Jefferson, Harrison and How They Launched the Western Movement
The 2024 Stephen Ambrose Memorial Lecture presented Missoula writer Peter Stark on Tuesday, October 15, at 6:30 p.m. in the Helena Library’s Large Community Room.
In this lecture, Stark focused on the push of the infant United States from the East Coast, over the Appalachians and into the Ohio Valley -- the earliest days of the Western Movement. Both President Washington and President Jefferson were instrumental in this earliest Western push. William Henry Harrison, son of a Founding Father, was Indiana Territorial Governor from 1801-1812 and played a central role as a young man -- and one that is not widely recognized -- in launching the Western Movement by taking Indian land rights and selling them to “little guy” settlers instead of big investors. (Much later he became U.S. president.)
The talk touched on the Louisiana Purchase, the Lewis and Clark Expedition and on John Jacob Astor's first American settlement on the Pacific. The lecture ended with a reflection on how the War of 1812 did not change much on the East Coast, but dramatically altered geopolitics on the Ohio Valley frontier and the West Coast.
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About Peter Stark: Peter Stark is an adventurer and historian. Born in Wisconsin, he grew up in an adventurous and outdoorsy family and graduated from Dartmouth College. After taking a master's in journalism at the University of Wisconsin, and working briefly for The Missoulian newspaper in Montana, he set out to write adventure-travel articles about Greenland, Tibet and elsewhere for magazines such as Outside, Smithsonian, The New York Times Magazine, and others.
With his wife, choreographer and writer Amy Ragsdale, and their two children, Stark and family lived for a year each in Mozambique and a remote region of Brazil. After taking part in the harrowing "first descent" of Mozambique's 750-kilometer-long Lugenda River by kayak in 2002, Stark decided to pull back from edgy adventure himself and pivot toward exploration history.
Based in Missoula, Montana, Stark now researches and writes historical accounts of early American explorers in wilderness settings and their contact with Indigenous peoples. His book Astoria, a New York Times bestseller in 2014, tells the epic story of the first American colony on the West Coast (at the Columbia River's mouth) and was named a PEN USA finalist and made into a two-part play by Portland Center Stage.
His Young Washington (2018) was named a finalist for the George Washington Book Prize. His latest book, Gallop Toward the Sun: Tecumseh’s and William Henry Harrison’s Struggle for the Destiny of a Nation (2023), is about the struggle for the continent's center between the great Shawnee leader Tecumseh and the frontier governor (and later president) William Henry Harrison.
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For more information, visit https://www.peterstarkauthor.com
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Watch a video of Peter Stark interviewed by Montana Poet Laureate Chris La Tray at the Missoula Public Library - 1/18/24.
A HISTORY OF THE AMBROSE MEMORIAL LECTURES:
2023 - November 3 - MARGA LINCOLN - Montana Grit: Ten Unsung Heroes Who Dared to Make a Difference.
2022 - November 3 - GERRY ROBINSON - The People and Places of The Cheyenne Story: An Interpretation of Courage. More info: http://cheyennestory.com.
2021 - December 16 - SCOTT G. HIBBARD - Bringing History Alive: Why I Write Historical Fiction. More info: https://www.scottghibbard.com. Watch on YouTube.
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2019 - October 10 - LORNA MILNE - A Frontier Photographer and a Naturalist: Evelyn and Ewen Cameron. More info: http://lornamilne.com. Watch on YouTube.
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2018 - October 23 - JAMIE FORD - Racebending: Adventures in a Bi-cultural World. More info: http://www.jamieford.com/. Watch on YouTube
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2017 - November 1 - STU WILSON - Fitzgerald in Montana.
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2016 - September 26 - PAUL R. WYLIE - The Baker Massacre: A Major Tragedy Nearly Lost in History. More info: https://paulrwylie.com.
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2015 - August 31 - O. ALAN WELTZIEN - Thomas Savage: A First-rate, if Neglected, Montana Novelist and Dillon’s Best Historian. More info: https://www.umwestern.edu/directory/alan-weltzien/
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2014 - September 23 - RUSSELL ROWLAND - Revising the Western Narrative. More info: http://russellrowland.com.
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2013 - August 15 - CHARLOTTE CALDWELL - Visions and Voices: Montana's One-Room Schoolhouses.
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2012 - October 16 - RUTH McLAUGHLIN - Bound Like Grass.
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2011 - October 27 - DOROTHEA SUSAG - Native American Literatures (Welch and Alexie).
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2010 - October 5 - HUGH AMBROSE - Behind the World's Most Expensive Mini-series: HBO's The Pacific. More info: https://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-hugh-ambrose-20150529-story.html.
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Helena Civic Television has recorded some of these lectures, which can be viewed on the Foundation's YouTube channel or on the Helena Civic TV website.
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Visit the Foundation News page to read about past Ambrose Lectures and other events and activities.
Photo by Amy Ragsdale