UND's Robert P. Wilkins Lecture to highlight women's suffrage Thursday, October 22, 2020

The University of North Dakota will host a National Votes for Women Trail Marker Dedication and the Robert P. Wilkins Lecture on Oct. 29 at 4 p.m. via Zoom.

The lecture is entitled: "In The Thickest Of The Fray: Cora Smith Eaton And The Struggle For Woman Suffrage In North Dakota." Kristin Mapel Bloomberg, Professor of Women's Studies, Hamline University Endowed Chair in the Humanities, is the featured speaker.

Register via Zoom at: https://bit.ly/33OEMNM

The Robert P. Wilkins Lecture Series was established by the UND Department of History as a tribute to the long service, dedication to teaching, and intellectual curiosity of Professor Wilkins (1914-1989).

Wilkins, who earned degrees from Indiana University and West Virginia University , joined the History Department in 1945, where he offered courses in Ancient, Medieval, Modern European, American, and Canadian History, and also developed a series of courses on popular culture, particularly in the area of American popular music. His wife, Wynona, taught French. He taught at the University of Oklahoma during a 1962 leave of absence and in 1964 took a position at Marshall University. He returned to UND in 1967 to teach and to be editor of the North Dakota Quarterly, developing it into one of the region's premier academic journals. He specialized in North Dakota history, and he and Wynona authored North Dakota: A Bicentennial History. He retired in 1981 and continued to conduct research and publish. For a full decade after his retirement, he volunteered to teach at least one class each semester. He died in 1998.