Our Community, Our State, Our Nation: American History in the Modern Era

October kicks off a series of lectures and discussions with Warren Hofstra, co-sponsored by seven local non-profit groups. Each of these lectures will engage large questions in American history in the context of the communities we create in our localities, our states, and in our nation. The series will be a means of asking big questions of small places and of a large nation. Each will raise issues about how Americans across three centuries have viewed the proper sphere of government as what is public in public life. Answers varied from time to time and from the points of view of those who raised them. But their consideration will provide a forum for people in Winchester and the surrounding community to ask what can and what should be done at a time of significant change in American life.

Warren Hofstra is the Stewart Bell Professor of History and director of the Community History Project at Shenandoah University. His areas of expertise include the American frontier, Virginia history, culture of the Cold War, and vernacular architecture. For more information on the series call Sandy Snyder (540) 535-3543, or email ssnyder@su.edu. All lectures are free and open to the public.

The topic of the October lecture is “American Frontiers: National Identity, Frederick Jackson Turner, and the Question of Significance.” The program begins at 7:30 pm at the Quaker Meeting House, Corner of Piccadilly and Washington St.