Join us for our annual State of the Museum meeting and program on Tuesday, September 5 at 3pm at the Richard and Carole Cocks Art Museum at Miami University.  Our special guest will be Dr. Mathew Smith, Professor of History. Matthew has kindly offered to speak on "The Cause of the West": Lane Theological Seminary and the Struggle for Religious Influence in Cincinnati, 1830-1850.

Professor Smith is eminently qualified to speak on this subject, having recently authored The Spires Still Point to Heaven: Cincinnati’s Religious Landscape, 1788–1873. Temple University Press, 2023. Smith's book has received favorable reviews, including this one by Randall Balmer, Professor of Religion at Dartmouth College:

Matthew Smith has immersed himself in primary and secondary sources, including often overlooked contemporaneous secondary materials, and has synthesized these into a very well-written and compelling narrative. What he demonstrates, among other things, is the relentless push toward toleration and accommodation, even though that push episodically crashed against the shoals of race, ethnicity, religion, and privilege. What is especially impressive about The Spires Still Point to Heaven is its discursive character, covering everything from geography and natural history to William Holmes McGuffey, the female seminary movement, and the (in)famous Cincinnati Bible War. This is an impressive achievement born of prodigious research.”

We look forward to seeing you on September 5.  Please RSVP to Stevie Woolf at <woolfs@miamioh.edu> or 529-1887.