Join us, Thursday, April 3, 2025 at 4pm for a Fellow’s Forum by James E. Lewis, Jr. Professor of History at Kalamazoo College.
Held in the Berkeley Conference Room of the Jefferson Library, this Fellow’s Forum is free and open to the public. The Presentation will begin promptly at 4pm and last for 60 minutes, including an opportunity for Q&A and discussion.
About the Presentation
For three decades, beginning as Secretary of State in the early 1790s and continuing during his presidency and beyond, Thomas Jefferson was connected to the push to create an American prime meridian to replace the British prime meridian at Greenwich. Why were Americans interested in having their own prime meridian at all? What was Jefferson's role in the process? How far had it progressed by the time of his death in 1826? This talk will address each of these question in the early decades of the new federal government.
About James Lewis
James E. Lewis Jr. is a professor of History at Kalamazoo College. He has written extensively on the politics, diplomacy, and political culture of the early American republic. His most recent book is The Burr Conspiracy: Making Sense of an Early American Crisis (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2017), which was a finalist for the George Washington Prize. He is working on a book on the American prime meridian from the colonial era to the late nineteenth century.
