America 250: The President’s Club - George Washington
with Historian Peter Vermilyea
In-Person & on Zoom:
First Meeting: Monday, July 7 from 3:15 - 4:15 PM
Registration is required to attend In-Person. Register here
Zoom link: click here at 3:15 PM July 7
Join us each month for one year as we explore 12 influential Presidents through selected biographies spanning from George Washington through John F. Kennedy.
About the Series:
When selecting biographies, we decided an author should only appear once on our list and that their work should be accessible. Each month, read the selected biography then join us as historian, author and teacher Peter Vermilyea leads the discussion exploring Presidential personalities, opportunities and failures, challenges, and legacies. Through lecture and discussion, we will delve deeper into our Presidential and shared history.
July Selection:
In July, we will be exploring Washington: A Life by Ron Chernow - A Pulitzer Prize winning book.
Celebrated biographer Ron Chernow provides a richly nuanced portrait of the father of our nation and the first president of the United States. With a breadth and depth matched by no other one volume biography of George Washington, this crisply paced narrative carries the reader through his adventurous early years, his heroic exploits with the Continental Army, and his magnificent performance as America's first president.
About the Presenter:
Peter Vermilyea teaches history at Housatonic Valley Regional High School in Falls Village, CT and at Western Connecticut State University. A graduate of Gettysburg College, he serves as the scholarship director of his alma mater’s Civil War Institute. He is the author or editor of five books and fifteen articles, most on aspects of Civil War history.
Physical books are available at OWL to borrow, and e-books and e-audio books are instantly available for OWL card holders.
America 250: The President’s Club - John Adams
with Historian Peter Vermilyea
Second Meeting: Monday, August 11 from 3:15 - 4:15 PM
Join us each month for one year as we explore 12 influential Presidents through selected biographies spanning from George Washington through John F. Kennedy.
About the Series:
When selecting biographies, we decided an author should only appear once on our list and that their work should be accessible. Each month, read the selected biography then join us as historian, author and teacher Peter Vermilyea leads the discussion exploring Presidential personalities, opportunities and failures, challenges, and legacies. Through lecture and discussion, we will delve deeper into our Presidential and shared history.
August Selection:
In August, we will be exploring John Adams by David McCullough - A Pulitzer Prize winning book.
In this powerful, epic biography, David McCullough unfolds the adventurous life journey of John Adams, the brilliant, fiercely independent, often irascible, always honest Yankee patriot who spared nothing in his zeal for the American Revolution and his love and dedication to fairness and American democracy.
About the Presenter:
Peter Vermilyea teaches history at Housatonic Valley Regional High School in Falls Village, CT and at Western Connecticut State University. A graduate of Gettysburg College, he serves as the scholarship director of his alma mater’s Civil War Institute. He is the author or editor of five books and fifteen articles, most on aspects of Civil War history.
Physical books will be available at OWL to borrow, and e-books and e-audio books are instantly available for OWL card holders.
Future dates & titles to be discussed:
October 6: American Sphinx by Joseph Ellis (Thomas Jefferson)
November 10: John Quincy Adams by Harlow Giles Unger
December 8: American Lion: Andrew Jackson by Jon Meacham
January 12: Lincoln’s White House by James B. Conroy
February 9: Destiny of the Republic by Candice Millard (James Garfield)
March 9: Theodore Rex by Edmund Morris (Theodore Roosevelt)
April 13: No Ordinary Time by Doris Kearns Goodwin (Franklin D. Roosevelt)
May 11: The Trials of Harry S. Truman by Jeffrey Frank
June 8: Ike’s Bluff by Evan Thomas (Dwight Eisenhower)
July 13: An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy by Robert Dallek