2025 – 2026 Speaker Series
Presented in Partnership with the Bethlehem Public Library
BHA is collaborating with the Bethlehem Public Library to sponsor our Speaker Series Program. All take place on from 7:00 to 8:45 p.m. in the library’s large Community Room. Registration is recommended as there is a capacity limit.
Call the library at 518-439-9314 or register using this website Bethlehem.LibraryCalendar.com
The programs will also be announced in the library’s Footnotes newsletter every 2 months.
The programs are open to the public.
Visit the Town Library YouTube page to watch previous speaker series.
Speaker Series Calendar
Upcoming Programs
2025-2026 Schedule
March 24
Topic: Revolutionary War memoir of James Selkirk
Speaker: Robb Haberman
“The Regiment was my home and the Company the family I Belonged to”: James Selkirk and Wartime Community in the Continental Army
This presentation will discuss the close connections formed between James Selkirk and the officers and enlisted men with whom he served during the American War of Independence. As a young man who migrated in 1774 from the Scottish Lowlands to the Province of New York, Selkirk found himself in a new world bereft of friends and family. The outbreak of war and enlistment in the Continental Army enabled Selkirk to create a surrogate community that he lacked in civilian life. This paper will explore how the bonds of friendship developed by Selkirk proved essential for surviving the numerous hardships of wartime service.
Robb Haberman is a historian of early America who studies media and memory in the American Revolution. Robb received his doctorate in history from the University of Connecticut and has held visiting lectureships at Trinity College and Colby College. Robb also worked for seven years at Columbia University as an associate editor for the John Jay Papers where he helped produce volumes four through seven of The Selected Papers of John Jay. Robb now teaches at Fordham University and his current book project explores the wartime experiences and life writings of James Selkirk, a soldier in the New York Line who served for over seven years in the Continental Army. Robb has received fellowships to research Selkirk’s life from the American Philosophical Society and the American Revolution Institute of the Society of the Cincinnati. The much anticipated book James Selkirk’s Revolutionary War: The Memoir of a Continental Soldier is now available for pre-order from the publisher. Join their free book club for 25% off.
https://www.westholmepublishing.com/book/james-selkirk-haberman/
Registration for the talk opens soon in February. Please check https://bethlehem.librarycalendar.com/ for more updates
April 21
Topic: Fun On Two Wheels: A Short History Of The Bicycle
Speaker: David H. Chinery
Previous Programs
September 16
Topic: D-Day 80th Anniversary
Speaker: Richard Muggeo
October 21
Topic: Songs and Sounds of the Anti-Rent Movement in Upstate New York
Speaker: Nancy Newman
November 18
Topic: FDR and the Hudson Valley
Speaker: Jeffrey Urbin
February 10
Topic: Women in WW2
Speaker: Dick Muggeo