Annual Throckmorton Lectures

Dr. Arthur L. Throckmorton came to Lewis & Clark College as a member of the History Department in 1950.  In 1952, he became the head of a committee that developed the integrated civilization and humanities program.  Five years later, he became chair of the history department.  In 1960, he helped establish the Lewis & Clark Chapter of Phi Theta Alpha, a national history honor society.  Dr. Throckmorton was also the author of Oregon Argonauts: Merchant Adventurers on the Western Frontier, published by the Oregon Historical Society Press in 1961.  Dr. Throckmorton died suddenly in December 1962.

To honor the achievements of Dr. Throckmorton in the field of history and his many contributions to the college, the Throckmorton Memorial Fund was established the year after his death.  The fund supports the annual lecture in history that has been given since 1964.  The first lecturer was one of Dr. Throckmorton’s own professors from the University of Minnesota, Dr. Ernest Osgood.  In a preface to his lecture Osgood praised the late Lewis & Clark professor:

“Arthur Throckmorton was a man of courage, of great integrity, a sound scholar, a great teacher and a gentleman to respect and admire.  I am proud to have been his teacher and prouder still to have been his friend.”

For almost sixty years, the History Department has been proud to bring to campus some of the most distinguished historians in the United States and from abroad as our Throckmorton Lecturers.

Throckmorton Lecturers

• 2025, Kate Brown, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• 2024, Kelly Lytle Hernández, University of California, Los Angeles
• 2023, Timothy Cheek, University of British Columbia
• 2022, Jordanna Bailkin, University of Washington

• 2020, Jane Hunter, Lewis & Clark College
• 2019, Euan Cameron, Union Theological Seminary
• 2018, Ayesha Jalal, Tufts University
• 2017, Martha Hodes, New York University
• 2016, Tara Zahra, University of Chicago
• 2015, Dipesh Chakrabarty, University of Chicago
• 2014, Greg Grandin, New York University
• 2013, Philippa Levine, University of Texas at Austin
• 2012, Elizabeth Berry, University of California, Berkeley
• 2011, Stephen Dow Beckham, Lewis & Clark College

• 2010, Carlos Eire, Yale University
• 2009, Mae Ngai, Columbia University
• 2008, Richard M. Eaton, University of Arizona
• 2007, Richard Drayton, Cambridge University
• 2006, William Cronon, University of Wisconsin, Madison
• 2005, Andrew Gordon, Harvard University
• 2004, Lynn Hunt, University of California, Los Angeles
• 2003, Carolyn Merchant, University of California, Berkeley
• 2002, David Cannadine, University of London
• 2001, Anthony Grafton, Princeton University
• 2000, Rámon Gutiérrez, University of California, San Diego

• 1999, Susan L. Mann, University of California, Davis
• 1998, John W. O’Malley, S.J., Weston Jesuit School of Theology
• 1997, Gary Nash, University of California, Los Angeles
• 1996, Carol Gluck, Columbia University
• 1995, Claudia Koonz, Duke University
• 1994, Alvin M. Josephy, Jr., independent author
• 1993, Frederic E. Wakeman, University of California, Berkeley
• 1992, William H. McNeill, University of Chicago
• 1991, Caroline Walker Bynum, Columbia University
• 1990, Roderick Nash, University of California, Santa Barbara

• 1989, Thomas A. Brady, University of Oregon
• 1988, Gary Moulton, University of Nebraska
• 1987, David Underdown, Yale University
• 1986, Frances Fitzgerald, journalist and author
• 1985, John L. Heilbron, University of California, Berkeley
• 1984, Firuz Kazemzadah, Yale University
• 1983, Carolyn Lougee, Stanford University
• 1982, Michael Sullivan, Oxford University
• 1981, Joan Kelly, City University of New York
• 1980, Winthrop Jordan, University of California, Berkeley

• 1979, Gerda Lerner, Sarah Lawrence College
• 1978, J.P. Mayer, University of Reading, England
• 1977, Dwight Waldo, Syracuse University
• 1976, Martin Diamond, Northern Illinois University
• 1975, Fredrick Freidel, Harvard University
• 1974, Giovanni Costigan, University of Washington
• 1973, Charles Sellers, University of California, Berkeley
• 1972, Carl Degler, Stanford University
• 1971, Kenneth Stamp, University of California, Berkeley
• 1970, David Potter, Stanford University

• 1969, Joachim Remak, University of California, Santa Barbara
• 1968, George H. Knowles, Stanford University
• 1967, Oscar Osburn Winther, Indiana University
• 1966, John D. Hicks, University of California, Berkeley
• 1965, Wendell Holmes Stephenson, University of Oregon
• 1964, Ernest S. Osgood, University of Minnesota