Department News - 2004

James Taylor Lectures March 29 and March 30, 2004

The James Taylor Lecture, sponsored by the Department of History at Texas State University, will for the first time in its forty-two year history present not one but two scholars offering their unique perspectives on the early history of our country on March 29 and March 30.

Fred and Virginia Anderson, our first husband and wife Taylor Lecturers, are professors of history at the University of Colorado, Boulder. At 7:30 P.M. on Monday, March 29th, Fred Anderson will explain the role of “The Seven Years’ War and the Making of George Washington” in Taylor Murphy Hall, Room 101. Virginia Anderson will describe “Seeing Banquo’s Ghost: Bringing Livestock into the History of Early America” at the second session of this year’s Taylor Lecture, on Tuesday afternoon, March 30th, at 3:30 P.M., also in Taylor-Murphy 101.

Fred Anderson earned his undergraduate degree at Colorado State University in his home state, and his graduate degrees far away at Harvard, where he and Virginia met. His dissertation was published as A People’s Army: Massachusetts Soldiers and Society in the Seven Years' War. He recently produced a superb general history of that conflict, Crucible of War: The Seven Years' War and the Fate of Empire in North America, 1754-1766.
Virginia Anderson is a native New Englander, taking her baccalaureate degree at the University of Connecticut. She holds master's degrees from both the University of East Anglia in Britain and Harvard, from which she also earned her doctorate. Her first book was New England's Generation: The Great Migration and the Formation of Society and Culture in the 17th Century, and her study of the role of cattle in the culture of early America will soon appear in print.

The James Taylor Lecture, the oldest established lecture at Texas State University, began in 1962 as a tribute to the then Chair of the Division of Social Sciences at what was then Southwest Texas State College. It has continued since the 1960s under the management of the Department of History at Texas State University.The Department of History invites the public to share the experience of two of this year’s Taylor Lectures with us.

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