If you enjoy history, Rodman Public Library has lots in store for you in 2026.
As the nation marks 250 years of freedom with the commemoration of the signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, RPL will present the seven-part “Forgotten Founders” lecture series, starting on Monday, January 26 at 6 p.m. when Sidney Zufall will present “Rebels and Revolutionaries: America’s First Patriots” inside the Rodman Auditorium.
Registration is required to attend all lectures in the series.
[REGISTER HERE for Rebels and Revolutionaries]
Zufall, who has become a popular speaker around the Alliance area over the past few years, will deliver six of the presentations, starting with the one in January.
“Many of the subjects of the series you may have heard of, but you probably don’t really know much about their story,” said Zufall, who has presented programs about Winston Churchill and Theodore Roosevelt in the past at Rodman Library. “Some of the others have almost been totally lost to history.”
The January 26 program is an overview of the events that sparked the Revolutionary War.
“This is not a story of compromise,” said Zufall. “It is a story of defiance. Ordinary men stood against an empire and declared that liberty comes not from kings, but from God. From James Otis and Patrick Henry to George Washington, this is the birth of American — bold, faith filled, and forged in sacrifice. It is their story. And it is ours.”
On Presidents Day (Februray 16), Zufall will discuss the remarkable life of Abigail Adams, the wife of our second president, John Adams, and the mother of our sixth president, John Quincy Adams, and a correspondent and influencer of a great many other patriots such as presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison.
[REGISTER HERE for Abigail Adams]
In honor of Women’s History Month, Zufall will discuss Mercy Otis Warren, a pioneering American poet and historian who was a key figure in the revolutionary movement and an important voice in the shaping of early American political thought.
[REGISTER HERE for Mercy Otis Warren]
James Otis Jr., the brother of Mercy Warren, will be the topic on Monday, April 13. Otis, a brilliant lawyer and one of America's first revolutionaries, wrote a number of important pamphlets in favor of American independence in the 1760s and is said to have coined the revolutionary phrase “no taxation without representation.”
[REGISTER HERE for James Otis Jr.]
On May 11, Dr. Joseph Warren will be the subject of Zufall’s Forgotten Founders lecture. Warren was one of the key figures in the Sons of Liberty and was the man who enlisted Paul Revere and William Dawes to spread the alarm about the British in April 1775.
[REGISTER HERE for Dr. Joseph Warren]
The series will conclude in June with two different lectures, including the final one by Zufall on June 15 when he discussed John Hancock, the man with the large signature on the Declaration of Independence was president of the Continental Congress. However, few remember his other contributions to the cause.
[REGISTER HERE for John Hancock]
On June 29, RPL Community Relations Manager Jack Weber will deliver “Shreve and Stark: Alliance’s Connection to the American Revolution” at both 11 a.m. and 6 p.m. The program will focus on the life of John Shreve, a Revolutionary War veteran buried in Alliance, and John Stark, the general from Vermont and the namesake of Stark County.
[REGISTER HERE for Shreve and Stark at 11 a.m.]
[REGISTER HERE for Shreve and Stark at 6 p.m.]
The lecture series is part of the America 250 events being sponsored by the Alliance Historical Society, which will also use the display case near the children’s area to exhibit items from its collection throughout most of the year. In January, the theme is “Alliance firsts.”
The Alliance Historical Society will be involved in several other programs throughout the year at RPL.
Already on the calendar for this year are a Juneteenth program about New Guinea, a colony of Black inhabitants located in Lexington Township around 1805. That talk will be delivered by Alliance Historical Society Vice President Michelle Dillon with the help of Weber, a fellow board member, on Tuesday, June 16 at 6 p.m.
[REGISTER HERE for New Guinea]
On Wednesday, July 1, Joseph Rubin, director of American Musical Productions, will speak at RPL ahead of a special July 4 concert at Silver Park that will commemorate a concert given by the Alliance City Band.
[REGISTER HERE for Joseph Rubin]
On September 9, Ed Hall Jr., a local photographer, will share his experience of visiting Ground Zero and share his photos taken from as part of The Alliance Review staff ahead the the 25th anniversary observance of the 9/11 Terrorist attacks.
On Veterans Day, Wednesday, November 11, Weber will share stories of several Alliance-area servicemembers that he discovered during a 27-year career as a local journalist in "Hometown Heroes: A Salute to Alliance Area Veterans."
[REGISTER for Hometown Heroes at 11 a.m.]
[REGISTER HERE for Hometown Heroes at 6:30 p.m.]
Finally, in December, Zufall will appear again with a program on the Doolittle Raid, the United States’ answer to the attack on Pearl Harbor as the nation commemorated the 85th anniversary of that national tragedy.
[Registration will be available soon.]
For complete details about these programs, or others that may get scheduled throughout the year, keep checking The Buzz and rodmanlibrary.com.