Winter Lecture Series

Little Known Presidential Elections in American History.

Professor Dan Breen will present a lecture series on  little known presidential elections in American history.  The five session series will chronicle an individual presidential election (1836, 1852, 1876, 1884, and 1940) each Sunday from February 26 through March 26th.

First lecture: Sunday, February 26 at 2pm in the Library Meeting Room

“Divide and Conquer?  The Campaign of 1836”
In 1836, the new Whig Party resorted to a strategy of nominating four candidates for the presidency instead of only one.  For good reason,
this was the last time a major American party sought victory by division rather than unity.  We’ll tell the story of that campaign, along with its
peculiar aftermath in the Electoral College–a topic of particular interest today.

Dr. Daniel Breen is a professor of Legal Studies at Brandeis University who led the World War I series the Library presented in 2006. In the past Dan has lectured at the Library about World War II, the Great Depression, the American Revolution, Prohibition, Supreme Court cases, the Civil War and the Roosevelts. Dr. Breen has both a JD from the University of Georgia and a PhD in History from Boston College.

 Thanks to the Friends of the Bedford Free Public Library for sponsoring this program. Free and open to the public.