History   

If you have read "Evangeline" by Longfellow, you probably remember the tragic story of the Acadians, the French-speaking people expelled from eastern Canada by the British beginning in 1755. We’ll explore their lives before this tragedy, the reasons for their expulsion, their far-flung dispersal, and the enormous toll it took. But their story is also one of survival, and we’ll examine ongoing efforts to preserve Acadian language and culture.

The class will include an overview of the National Park System's history and units that are included in it (parks, preserves, seashores, etc.). Slides of outstanding features in the parks will be shown, and things to do in the parks will be discussed. The focus will be on less well-known parks such as The National Park of American Samoa, Alaska's Lake Clark, Congaree in South Carolina, and the newest park, New River Gorge in West Virginia.

One of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s closest friends and the first female secretary of labor, Francis Perkins, capitalized on Roosevelt’s political savvy and popularity to enact most of the Depression-era programs that are today considered essential parts of this country’s social safety net. This class will explore her pivotal role in what some would argue were the most transformative twelve years of the 20th century.

Frederick Law Olmsted left an indelible impression on America's urban landscapes. Beginning with Central Park in 1858, he envisioned, then redefined, public spaces and institutional campuses, elevating the profession of landscape architecture and affecting urban planning for generations to follow. What is much less known about Olmsted was his role in the protection of national treasures such as Yosemite and Niagara Falls and how his proposals for stewarding them would influence other conservationists who championed the creation and protection of public lands. While Jeff Ryan was researching his most recent book on America's conservation history, he discovered that Olmsted was articulating the reasons why public lands were important and recommending management practices decades before they were implemented, as early as 1865, in fact. On the eve of Olmsted's 200th birthday in 2022, Ryan will share what he learned about Olmsted's early years, how they contributed to his insights regarding Yosemite and Niagara Falls, and how his feelings about the importance of reconnecting with nature continued to influence his landscape designs for the rest of his career.

During WW2 people around the world had to make do with what was available. Both in Britain and the US, housewives developed creative recipes to make the best use of rationed foods and whatever else was available to them. Some were quite delicious, others were one time wonders. This presentation will acquaint you with rationing and how cooks become quite resourceful when having to make do.

The stories of two famous little people - "Commodore" George Washington Morrison Nutt (1848-1881) and "Count" Philippe Nicol (1881-1940) - are Manchester stories. Nutt grew up on a farm in the southeastern part of the city, while Nicol lived with his French-Canadian immigrant family on Manchester’s west side. Both were dwarfs who worked from a young age as "midget" performers. Nutt was one of P.T. Barnum’s top headliners, and Nicol and his wife, the "Countess" Rose Nicol, worked in circuses and became celebrities in Montreal where they built their famous home (and tourist attraction), the Midgets Palace. Learn about the struggles and triumphs of these fascinating people whose lives were anything but ordinary!

Before she passed away in 1974, Felicia Bornstein Lubliner wrote about her internment in Polish ghettos and two Nazi concentration camps, Auschwitz and Gross-Rosen. Her powerful stories have recently been published by her son, Irv Lubliner, an emeritus Southern Oregon University professor and OLLI instructor. He will share excerpts from "Only Hope: A Survivor’s Stories of the Holocaust," shedding light on his mother’s experiences and indomitable spirit, as well as his experience as a child of Holocaust survivors and his process in bringing the book to fruition. The instructor will pause during and after his presentation to invite questions and discussion. The book may be purchased on the website https://www.onlyhopebook.com, if participants choose.

The journalist H.L. Mencken famously defined Puritanism as "the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy." Puritanical has come to mean intolerant, repressed and humorless. But the story of the Puritans of New England is a complex one, with positive as well as negative aspects. We will explore their history and beliefs, and see the differences between the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony and the Puritans of the much more influential Massachusetts Bay Colony. We will examine the stories of some famous New England Puritans, including John Winthrop and Anne Hutchinson. We'll also explore the ways in which we as Americans are indebted to the Puritans because they constitute a large part of the the answer to the question: Why did the American Revolution start in Boston?

After World War II ended, hundreds of Nazi criminals escaped with the help of the most unlikely persons and organizations. The main escape routes were called Ratlines. These escape routes took fleeing Nazis to Spain, South America, Mexico, Switzerland and the United States. Among the Nazis utilizing these routes were some of the most notorious criminals of the war, including Adolph Eichmann, Josef Mengele, Walter Rauff, Klaus Barbie, Franz Stangl and Ante Pavelic, as well as all of the scientists relocated under Operation Paperclip. This class will explore the escape of these criminals and the organizations that helped them, including the Vatican, members of several religious orders, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and the governments of Argentina, Spain, Switzerland and the United States.

Exeter has the distinction of having had the highest percentage of Black citizens of any town in NH directly after the Revolutionary War, when a number of Black soldiers settled in the town and raised children and grandchildren. Meet the most famous of those veterans, Jude Hall, and hear his family's story. By the end of the 1800s there were only a handful of Black citizens left in Exeter, and that chapter of Exeter's history was all but erased from memory. Find out why that is and what is happening today to help Exeter reckon with its past. Attendees may wish to read the Wikipedia entry for "Jude Hall" to familiarize themselves with the subject.

This class looks at the history of Alaska in a whole new way, centering on the experiences of Alaska’s Native Peoples as they experienced their land and resources overrun and then claimed by Russians and American colonizers. After an overview, we will cover the histories of Inupiaq, Yup’ik, Unangan and Sugpiaq, Tlingit and Haida, and Athabascans. Required reading: William L. Iggiagruk Hensley (2010). “Fifty Miles from Tomorrow: A Memoir of Alaska and the Real People.” Picador. ISBN# 978-0312429362.