The College of Charleston Friends of the Library is presenting a lecture by Richard Norton Smith on the relationship between Presidents Herbert Hoover and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Smith will look at the pair, who were once neighbors and friends, but became political adversaries during a time in the U.S. similar to present day.

The lecture is part of the 20th Anniversary of the Winthrop Roundtable and will be held on Tuesday, November 10 at 6:30 p.m. in the Marlene and Nathan Addlestone Library.

The Winthrop Roundtable is a semi-annual event that features speakers from a variety of backgrounds, including world affairs, politics, the arts and mass media. Past speakers include Senator John Kerry, philanthropist Martha Rivers Ingram, businesswoman Darla Moore, journalist Cokie Roberts, former Under-Secretary General for the United Nations Shashi Tharoor and author George Plimpton.

Richard Norton Smith is a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard University and a renowned scholar of American history. He has authored two seminal works on the American presidency: An Uncommon Man: The Triumph of Herbert Hoover and Patriarch: George Washington and the New American Nation. His Thomas E. Dewey and His Times was a finalist for the 1983 Pulitzer Prize. Smith is currently at work on a biography of Nelson A. Rockefeller, derived from his research and interviews with Rockefeller’s colleagues. Mr. Smith has also served as director for some of the country’s most significant libraries, museums and institutions, including the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum in West Branch, Iowa; the Dwight D. Eisenhower Center in Abilene, Kansas; and the Gerald R. Ford Museum and Library in Grand Rapids and Ann Arbor, Michigan. As director of the Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, he oversaw the construction of its $11.3 million facility and introduced a presidential lecture series. Most recently, Mr. Smith served as executive director of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Illinois. Mr. Smith is currently a scholar in residence at George Mason University.

For more information, contact Jenny Fowler at 843.953.6526.