The Richard W. Smith Memorial Service has been recorded and can be viewed here.
2025 Richard W. Smith Lecture in Civil War History:
This lecture took place on September 29, 2025 at 7 pm in Benes Room AB in the Hamilton Williams Campus Center. Dr. Brooks Simpson (Arizona State University) presented the lecture: "Thunder in the Valley: Grant, Sheridan, and Hayes Triumph in the Shenandoah Valley, 1864." This was recorded and the link will be posted here when it is available.
Richard W. Smith Lecture in Civil War History
OWU President Matt vandenBerg (standing) with Richard Smith (1923-2025) and his wife Betty (both seated) photo taken by Paul Vernon, Fall of 2023
Dr. Smith promoted the importance of learning history from the first time he stepped onto Ohio Wesleyan's campus as a professor in 1950. His teaching focused on early US History including topics such as the American Frontier and the Civil War. Dr. Smith's remarkable legacy includes being awarded the President Herbert Welch Meritorious Teaching Award in 1975, establishing the Epsilon Zeta Chapter of OWU Phi Alpha Theta as a charter member in 1954 and serving as the faculty advisor, publishing his book: Bishop McIlvaine, Slavery, Britain & the Civil War in 2014, and having no fewer than 18 of his former students having continued their education through the doctoral level. For his students, Dr. Smith was a demanding instructor as well as inspiring and popular who succeeded in instilling in them a lifelong love of learning and history. He retired in 1986 and was active and attended lectures as an emeritus professor including attending the 2024 Richard W. Smith Lecture at 100 years of age.
His former students, Evan Bukey, Evan Corns, and Lloyd Ferguson initiated the funding which created The Richard W. Smith Endowed Fund in Civil War History. Through many donations from alumni, colleagues, friends, and community members, this Endowed Fund supports the Richard W. Smith Lecture in Civil War History and has given the OWU History Department the opportunity to bring in top historians on the subjects surrounding Civil War History which honors Dr. Smith's legacy to educate students and the public about the Civil War. Dr. Smith passed away on July 1, 2025, but his legacy will continue on through the memories and experiences of his students as well as through the support provided by the Richard W. Smith Endowed Fund in Civil War History.
Past Lectures
2024 – A Tale of Two Slave Traders: Lincoln and the Destruction of the Transatlantic Slave Trade – Jonathan W. White, Ph.D. Stream OWU Video | Press Release
2023 – The Howling Storm: Weather, Climate, and the American Civil War – Kenneth W. Noe, Ph.D. Stream OWU Video | Press Release
2022 – An End or Beginning: Lee's Army After Appomattox – Caroline E. Janney, Ph.D. Stream OWU Video | Press Release
2021 – General William S. Rosecrans and the Pitfalls of Command – Mark Grimsley, Ph.D. Stream OWU Video | Press Release
2020 – No Lecture due to COVID-19
2019 – Generalship and Army Culture: A Study of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia and the Union Army of the Potomac – Joseph T. Glatthaar, Ph.D. Press Release
2018 – The Transformative Fourteenth Amendment: The Constitutional Amendment That Reshaped America – Michael Les Benedict, Ph.D. Stream OWU Video | Press Release
