Rochester Hills Museum to Host Annual Leadership Seminar

The Rochester Hills Museum at Van Hoosen Farm will host Dr. James R. Grossman, Executive Director of the American Historical Association, for a presentation on LEADERSHIP AND HISTORICAL THINKING, 1776 – 2013, on Wednesday, September 11, 2013 (Patriot’s Day) at 7:00 p.m. in the Museum’s Calf Barn as part of the Museum’s annual Broomfield Center for Leadership seminar series.  Admission is free but a reservation is requested.

Dr. Grossman will speak on American leaders who created and transformed the United States of America from its early patriotic and democratic ideas to our country’s current status today.  The American Historical Association is based in Washington, D.C. and was incorporated by Congress in 1889 for the promotion of historical studies.  Jim Grossman, PhD moved to the AHA to become the Executive Director in 2010 from the Newberry Library, where he was vice president for research and education.  He has taught at the University of California, San Diego, and at the University of Chicago, where he remains senior research associate in history.   He is the author of numerous books and articles and is often interviewed by PBS and the BBC.

According to Rochester Hills Museum Director Patrick McKay, “Dr. Grossman will provide another exceptional opportunity to reflect on great leadership in our country and he will provide our community with a chance to develop our own great leaders who can prepare us for the future.”

This presentation is the third annual Broomfield Center for Leadership educational event hosted by the Rochester Hills Museum and will be held in the newly reconstructed Calf Barn on the Museum grounds.  Please reserve a space at 248.656.4663 or rhmuseum@rochesterhills.org.

Due to construction on Tienken Road, you can download a detour map to the Museum on the Museum website.  The Museum is located at 1005 Van Hoosen Road, between Rochester and Dequindre Roads.

Jim Grossman Bio

Jim Grossman is Executive Director of the American Historical Association and a member of the History Department faculty at the University of Chicago.  From 1997-2010, he was Vice President for Research and Education at the Newberry Library.   He received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, and has taught at the University of Chicago and the University of California, San Diego.  He is the author of Land of Hope: Chicago, Black Southerners, and the Great Migration (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1989) and A Chance to Make Good: African-Americans, 1900-1929 (Oxford Univ. Press, 1997).  He was project director and coeditor of The Encyclopedia of Chicago (Univ. of Chicago Press, 2005; and online in 2006).  Grossman also was the editor of The Frontier in American Culture (Univ. of California Press, 1994) and continues as coeditor of the series “Historical Studies of Urban America” (Univ. of Chicago Press, 36 vols., 1992- ). His articles and short essays have focused on various aspects of American urban history, African American history, American ethnicity, higher education, and the place of history in public culture.  His book reviews have appeared in the Chicago Tribune and New York Newsday in addition to various academic journals.

Land of Hope received awards from the Gustavus Myers Center for Human Rights and the Illinois State Historical Society.  A Chance to Make Good won awards from the New York Public Library and the National Council for the Social Studies. The Encyclopedia of Chicago won awards from the Scholarly Publishers Division of the Association of American Publishers and the Illinois State Historical Society. Grossman was chosen in 2005 as one of seven “Chicagoans of the Year” by Chicago Magazine.

Grossman’s consulting experience includes a broad variety of history-related projects generated by the BBC, Smithsonian, and various theater companies, film makers, museums, and libraries.

Professional service has included elected offices in the American Historical Association, ethics committees for the AHA and the Organization of American Historians, and Advisory Boards for the Center for New Deal Studies at Roosevelt University, Illinois Historical Society, City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, and Chicago Public Library.  He co-chaired the Program Committee for the Annual Meeting of the Organization of American Historians in 2005.  Grossman currently serves on the boards of the Center for Research Libraries, National Humanities Alliance, National History Center, Vivian G. Harsh Society, and the Coalition of Social Science Associations.