REAGAN Midwest ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ and the JANUARY 14–15, 2011 AT EUREKA COLLEGE EUREKA COLLEGE PRESENTS
Mar 24, 2016
Conference Schedule 4 About the Conference 5 J. David Arnold, Philip Acree Cavalier
Keynote Address 6 Governor Jim Edgar
Young Ronald Reagan’s Midwest 7 James Capshew, Indiana University, and Andrew Cayton, Miami University
Origins of Vision and Voice 8-9 Fred Barnes, moderator, Craig Shirley, Martin Anderson, Annelise Anderson
Myth, History, and Reagan’s Youth in Presidential Biography 10 Roger Johnson, University of Sussex
Scripting an American Life: 11 Autobiography, Ronald Reagan, and the Invention of a President Devan Bissonette, Delta College
The Midwest and Reagan’s Anticommunism 12 Jon Peterson, Ohio University
Midwestern Echoes in the Formation of Ronald Reagan’s Personal 13 and Political Identities John Miller, South Dakota State University
Personally Prudent but Publicly Profligate: The Impact of the Great 14 Depression on Reagan’s Generation Joshua Hall, Beloit College, and Jeremy Horpedahl, Buena Vista University
How Did the Midwest Shape Ronald Reagan? 15 Edwin Meese, opening comments, James Capshew, moderator, Peter Hannaford, Andrew Cayton
Optional Bus Trip to Tampico and Dixon 16 Registration Form 17
T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S
Conference Schedule Friday, January 14, 2011 8:00 a.m. Shuttles depart the Hotel Père Marquette for Eureka College 9:00 a.m. Breakfast at Eureka College (Commons) 9:30 a.m. Young Ronald Reagan’s Midwest
James Capshew, Indiana University Andrew Cayton, Miami University
11:00 a.m. Origins of Vision and Voice
Fred Barnes, moderator Craig Shirley Martin Anderson Annelise Anderson
12:00 noon Lunch (Commons) 1:00 p.m. Afternoon Sessions
―Myth, History, and Reagan’s Youth in Presidential Biography,‖ Roger Johnson, University of Sussex
―Scripting an American Life: Autobiography, Ronald Reagan, and the Invention of a President,‖ Devan Bissonette, Delta College
2:00 p.m. ―The Midwest and Reagan’s Anticommunism,‖ Jon Peterson, Ohio University
―Midwestern Echoes in the Formation of Ronald Reagan’s Personal and Political Identities,‖ John Miller, South Dakota State University
―Personally Prudent but Publicly Profligate: The Impact of the Great Depression on Reagan’s Gener-ation,‖ Joshua Hall, Beloit College, and Jeremy Horpedahl, Buena Vista University
3:15 p.m. Break 3:30 p.m. How Did the Midwest Shape Ronald Reagan?
Edwin Meese, opening comments James Capshew, moderator Peter Hannaford Andrew Cayton
5:30 p.m. Conference Reception 6:00 p.m. 4th Annual Reagan Day Dinner 7:30 p.m. Keynote Address, Governor Jim Edgar 9:00 p.m. Shuttles return to Hotel Père Marquette
END OF CONFERENCE
Saturday, January 15, 2011
8:30 a.m.-6:00 p.m. Optional Tampico and Dixon trip (extra charge)
Bus leaves from and returns to the Hotel Père Marquette for Dixon and Tampico
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J o i n u s a s t h e f o l l o w i n g p r e s e n t e r s
p r o v i d e u n i q u e p e r s p e c t i v e s o n
- R o n a l d W . R e a g a n -
E d w i n M e e s e I I I
Former U.S. Attorney General
J i m E d g a r
Former Illinois Governor
F r e d B a r n e s
Editor of The Weekly Standard and FOX News Political Commentator
P e t e r H a n n a f o r d
Director of Communications for Reagan - as Governor and in 1980 Presidential Campaign
D r . M a r t i n A n d e r s o n a n d
D r . A n n e l i s e A n d e r s o n
Authors and Advisors to Ronald Reagan
C r a i g S h i r l e y
Author and Editor of books on Ronald Reagan
O t h e r P r e s e n t o r s
Dr. Devan Bissonette - Delta College
Dr. James Capshew - Indiana University
Dr. Andrew Cayton - Miami University
Dr. J. David Arnold President, Eureka College
Dr. Philip Acree Cavalier Provost, Eureka College
Discover how his Midwestern background shaped the leader and the man.
Conference Organizers
As part of the Ronald
Reagan Centennial Cele-
bration at Eureka Col-
lege, this conference will
focus on the formative
factors of family, faith,
community, and educa-
tion that were central to
Reagan's development
as a great servant leader.
Many features of
Reagan's leadership can
be traced back to the
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Jim Edgar, a distinguished fellow with the Institute of Government and Public Affairs, was the 38th governor of Illinois. As governor, he made fiscal discipline and children the cornerstones of his two terms. First elected in 1990, Governor Edgar won re-election in 1994 by the largest margin ever for a governor. His popularity as governor prompted a Chicago Tribune columnist to write near the end of his administration that Edgar's popularity in Illinois was "second only to Michael Jordan's."
Edgar has served in a variety of leadership roles, including president of the Council of State Governments, member of the executive committee of the National Governors' Association, and chairman of the Midwest Governors' Association. He has also been a resident fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Governor Edgar serves on a variety of civic and corporate boards of directors.
Before becoming governor, Edgar served as secretary of state for 10 years and was elected to the Illinois House from Charleston in 1976. He received a B.A. in history from Eastern Illinois University in 1968.
Jim Edgar
Keynote Speaker
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James H. Capshew received a B.A. in psychology from Indiana University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in the history and sociology of science from the University of Pennsylvania. An associate professor in the history and philosophy of science at Indiana University, he has adjunct appointments in the history department, the American Studies Program, and the School of Education. He serves as editor of History of Psychology, a research journal sponsored by the American Psychological Association. Professor Capshew's teaching areas include history of science in the 20th century, the history of psychology, the history of Indiana University, and environmental history.
Andrew Cayton, University Distinguished Professor of History at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, is the author or editor of several books dealing with the history of the American Midwest, including The American Midwest: Essays on Regional History and The American Midwest: An Interpretive Encyclopedia. A native of Ohio, Cayton earned a B.A. from the University of Virginia and an M.A. and Ph.D. in history from Brown University. He has been the John Adams (Fulbright) Professor of American Studies at Leiden University in the Netherlands, a fellow of the Rockefeller Foundation Center at Bellagio, Italy, and currently serves as president-elect of the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic. His reviews have appeared in The New York Times Sunday Book Review, The Los Angeles Times Sunday Book Review, The Washington Post Sunday Book World, and The Wall Street Journal. Cayton is now collaborating with Fred Anderson on Imperial America, 1672-1764, a volume in the Oxford History of the United States.
Dr. James H. Capshew
Dr. Andrew R.L. Cayton
Young Ronald Reagan’s Midwest
We generally think of Ronald Reagan as a Western American. But he was as much a son of the American Midwest as John F. Kennedy was of New England and Bill Clinton was of the South. This session will ask us to think about the region into which Reagan was born--at the time one of the most dynamic and diverse places on the Earth--and the ways in which a Midwestern edu-cation profoundly influenced the demeanor and sensibility, if not the policies, of President Reagan.
Origins of Vision and Voice
Most students refine their particular point of view, or vision, and enhance their communication skills, or voice, during their college years. Moderated by Fred Barnes, the panelists in this ses-sion will discuss Reagan’s early writings, which include almost 700 handwritten scripts for radio broadcasts and several thousand notes and letters, as well as his campaign speeches.
Drs. Annelise and Martin Anderson with President Reagan
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Fred Barnes is executive editor of The Weekly Standard, which he cofounded in 1995. From 1985 to 1995, he was senior editor and White House correspondent for The New Republic. He covered the Supreme Court and the White House for the The Washington Star before moving to The Baltimore Sun in 1979. He served as the national political correspondent for the Sun and wrote the "Presswatch" media column for The American Spectator. Barnes appears regularly on the FOX News Channel. From 1988 to 1998 he was a regular panelist on The McLaughlin Group. He has also appeared on Nightline, Meet the Press, Face the Nation, and The News Hour with Jim Lehrer. Barnes graduated from the University of Virginia and was a Neiman Fellow at Harvard University.
Martin and Annelise Anderson, husband and wife, are coauthors of the New York Times bestsellers Reagan, In His Own Hand; Reagan: A Life in Letters; and Reagan’s Path to Victory. Both are fellows at the Hoover Institution. Martin, an M.I.T. Ph.D., worked in the Reagan White House as an economic policy advisor, and, more recently, sat on the Pentagon’s defense-policy board. Annelise, a Columbia Ph.D., was a senior policy advisor to the Reagan presidential campaign and an associate director within Reagan’s Office of Management and Budget, where she was responsible for the budgets of five Cabinet departments and more than forty other agencies.
Craig Shirley, president and ceo of Shirley & Banister Public Affairs, has been professionally involved in American politics and government for almost three decades. He has worked in government and on campaigns at the congressional, gubernatorial, and presidential levels. A graduate of Springfield College, Shirley’s fields of specialization include strategic public relations, crisis management, marketing, and government affairs, as well as political consulting and government affairs. Shirley is the author of Reagan’s Revolution: The Untold Story of the Campaign That Started It All. As communications advisor to the Republican National Committee in 1982, Shirley traveled across the country advising dozens of campaigns and state committees on public relations, political advertising, and campaign strategy. Shirley has appeared on national television including C-SPAN, CNBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NBC, and FOX News Channel. Shirley also lectures at various seminars and has contributed articles to numerous publications. He resides in Alexandria, Virginia, with his wife, Zorine, and their four children.
Dr. Annelise Anderson
Dr. Martin Anderson
Fred Barnes
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Craig Shirley
Roger Johnson recently received his Ph.D. in American studies from the University of Sussex
in the UK. His thesis, entitled ―Ronald Reagan and the Mythology of American History,‖
looks at various aspects of how President Reagan remembered the American past, and how he
has subsequently been remembered. He plans to turn this into a book. His past articles include
―Victory and Identity: The End of the Cold War in American Imagination‖ in United States
Foreign Policy and National Identity in the 21st Century. He has also published articles in The New
Statesman Online, and maintains a blog, Gipperwatch (http://gipperwatch.blogspot.com/), which
monitors Reagan’s appearances in contemporary American politics and culture. He hopes to
continue a career in teaching and researching American history. Dr. Roger
Johnson
Myth, History, and Reagan’s Youth in Presidential Biography
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The story of Ronald Reagan’s childhood and youth has been told many times, frequently in the context of American myth. As a Hollywood star, his roots became part of his all-American public persona. When running for office, campaign biographies emphasized his early experienc-es as symbolic qualifications for leadership. It is in the biographies of Reagan written after he became president, however, where his early life is most fully represented in association with mythic narratives of American history. This paper will critically examine the biographical repre-sentations of Reagan’s youth in terms of how they conform to and expand a mythic concept of President Reagan, as an agent and representative of American history. I will focus on his most significant and successful biographers, including critics such as Garry Wills and Michael Rogin, admirers such as Peggy Noonan and Paul Kengor, as well as the less definable Edmund Morris.
Myth, which I understand as the communication of symbolic, shared, and meaningful stories or images, is a fundamental part of biography as a genre. I will approach it, though, in three as-pects specific to Reagan in presidential biography. The first is where authors seek and discover the ―log cabin myth‖ in Reagan’s life, associating him with traditional presidential iconography and thus with a grand presidential lineage. The second is where Reagan’s presidency appears in Reagan’s childhood. Biographers often depict the ideas, ideologies, and methods of Reagan’s leadership as part of his young self, imbuing his life with a sense of inevitability or destiny. This relates to the final aspect – where the young Reagan is represented as a part of, and a symbol of, a narrative of American history. Presidents are representatives of their ages, and their lives be-come representative of the national history they live through. I will demonstrate how his biog-raphers make Reagan’s youth part of a story of the American twentieth century.
Devan Bissonette, Adjunct Professor at Delta College in Michigan, earned his Ph.D. in history from Binghamton University, with an emphasis on American history and media studies. He previously received an M.A. in history at Binghamton, an M.A. in telecommunications from Michigan State University, and a B.A. in Political Science, also from Michigan State. He has taught subjects ranging from American history to media studies and Western civilization/humanities. His research interests are mostly related to American history and the role of media in communicating the past and shaping our understanding of the present.
Scripting an American Life: Autobiography, Ronald Reagan, and the Invention of a President
Dr. Devan Bissonette
Page 11
Ronald Reagan was not one to be introspective when speaking of his childhood. The Great Communicator offered familiar jokes and well-told stories to avoid substantive discussion of his youth. It was a curious silence from a President remembered for his ability to understand the common man, for Reagan’s unspoken past demonstrated more than any anecdote just how similar his Midwestern coming of age was to many Americans. His father struggled through a number of failed business ventures, moving the family periodically in search of financial stabil-ity. Young Ronald was never in a single place long enough to develop intimate friendships. His natural shyness only increased his isolation. This all changed by the time Reagan graduated from Eureka College. Thanks to a combination of sport and acting that taught him how to convey confidence and affability, he became far more interested in socializing than study-ing. Building upon theories of leadership first proposed by sociologist Max Weber with recent studies on media, this paper pulls back the curtain on Ronald Reagan to reveal the importance of his carefully scripted autobiographical reminisces in establishing Reagan’s charismatic bonds with the voting public. While Reagan’s chosen reflections emphasized his everyman status, the theatrical nature of his public appearances made it appear an exceptional personality was born from this typical American childhood. This illusionary charisma proved an ideal match with the mediated nature of modern elections. Short public speeches devoid of personal interaction and carefully tailored sound bytes obscured the rather ordinary, introverted man behind Reagan’s extraordinary charismatic mask. By reexamining his early life through Weber’s charismatic frameworks, I demonstrate how Reagan’s refusal to open up about his early personal life was an essential means of protecting his carefully shaped public image and thereby strengthening his manufactured charismatic power.
Jon Peterson hold a Ph.D. in history from Ohio University. His article "Peace Through Strength or Strength Through Peace?: The Nuclear Freeze Movement in 1982" will be published in the February 2011 issue of the journal Eras. His manuscript is titled "'An Evil Empire': The Rhetorical Rearmament of Ronald Reagan." He is an adjunct instructor of history at Ohio University -Chillicothe.
Dr. Jon Peterson
The Midwest and Reagan’s Anticommunism
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President Ronald Reagan’s ideological anticommunism and pragmatic political coalition-building
were rooted in his formative years in the Midwest during the 1920s and 1930s. His rhetorical
anticommunism culminated with his March 8, 1983, address to the National Association of
Evangelicals, dubbed the ―Evil Empire‖ speech, in which he called the Soviet Union ―an evil
empire‖ and ―the focus of evil in the modern world.‖ These polemics had intellectual origins in
Reagan’s biography. The seeds of his staunch anticommunism were planted during his upbring-
ing by his devoutly religious mother’s moralizing about good and evil. Communists were by def-
inition atheists, and godlessness was a fatal character flaw for Nelle Reagan. His pre-presidential
years shaped his political philosophy as his anticommunism germinated during his youth in early
20th century Illinois.
With an everyman narrative straight out of a Frank Capra movie, Reagan achieved personal suc-
cess despite a challenging home life where his alcoholic father, Jack Reagan, created a transient
and unstable home life during Reagan’s youth. He demonstrated a level of adaptability that al-
lowed Reagan to connect with his devout mother and his irreligious father, which served him
well in his acting career and later as a politician. He possessed a pragmatic understanding of hu-
man nature and of what his audience wanted. As a politician, he had an innate ability to speak
to the pressing concerns of his constituents, from national security to social issues. Developing
tactics to shore up all three legs of the Republican Party’s electoral coalition—anticommunism,
lower taxes, social conservatism—came from his pre-presidential years. Reagan used his appeal-
ing anticommunist ideology and skillful political pragmatism to unite this coalition in opposition
to his constructed confederation of domestic liberals and international communists.
John E. Miller, who taught recent American history for thirty years at the University of
Tulsa and South Dakota State University, is currently a freelance author and historian living
in Brookings, South Dakota. His seven books include Governor Philip F. La Follette, the
Wisconsin Progressives, and the New Deal and Looking for History on Highway 14 as well
as three books on Laura Ingalls Wilder. He is currently co-editing and writing one of the
essays for a volume about South Dakota political culture and is also writing a book about
―small-town boys‖ who grew up in the Midwest. One of his twenty-two subjects in the
latter project is Ronald Reagan.
Midwestern Echoes in the Formation of Ronald Reagan’s Personal and Political Identities
Dr. John Miller
Page 13
Ronald Reagan possessed a much more complex personality than many observers gave him cred-
it for. Nothing stood out more in his speeches and actions than that he was a dreamer. Sean
Wilentz and Jon Meacham have referred to him simply as ―the American Dreamer.‖ John Pat-
rick Diggins pictures a Reagan who ―stood for freedom, peace, disarmament, self-reliance, earth-
ly happiness, the dreams of the imagination and the desires of the heart.‖ The biographer who
personally knew him best, Lou Cannon, notes, ―Even in old age, he clung to his youthful
dreams.‖ Several northern Illinois towns—primarily Dixon—gave birth to those dreams. Eure-
ka College expanded and broadened them. Time as a radio announcer in Des Moines provided a
practical opportunity for the young Reagan to depart the Midwest for the dream factory of Hol-
lywood.
With acting techniques honed in the movie industry, political savvy and leadership skills acquired
as a union activist, and forensic expertise obtained as a radio announcer, traveling GE repre-
sentative, and television host, Reagan parlayed his special talents into significant advantage over
political foes. Starting from the premise that his career path and political leadership role were
always works in progress dependent upon a continual process of growth and maturation, this pa-
per will focus upon the experiences obtained and lessons learned in Dixon, Eureka, and Des
Moines and ruminate on their impact on his later life. His was a constructed identity, generally
fashioned unconsciously, molded by circumstances, and channeling itself into paths of oppor-
tunity holding the biggest payoff.
This paper is a spin-off from research done for a book I am writing about ―small-town boys‖
from the Midwest. I have visited Dixon twice, spent a day at the Reagan library, read heavily in
the major biographies and histories of the time, and supplemented these with journalistic ac-
counts in newspapers and magazines, scholarly journals, and Reagan’s own speeches and writings.
Joshua Hall is an assistant professor of economics at Beloit College. He earned his bachelor and master degrees in economics from Ohio University and his Ph.D. from West Virginia University. Formerly an economist for the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress, he has published over one hundred professional journal articles, policy studies, book chapters, encyclopedia entries and book reviews. Professor Hall's research has appeared in journals such as American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Atlantic Economic Journal, Cato Journal, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Journal of Economic Education, Journal of Labor Research, Public Finance Review, and Southern Economic Journal. He is also co-author (with James Gwartney and Robert Lawson) of the widely-cited Economic Freedom of the World annual report. Jeremy Horpedahl is an assistant professor of economics in the Harold Walter Siebens School of Business, Buena Vista University, Storm Lake, IA. Horpedahl earned his bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of South Dakota, Vermillion (2002) and his master’s degree (2007) and Ph.D. (2009) in economics from George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia. He was most recently visiting assistant professor of economics at St. Lawrence University, Canton, NY, and he previously worked for the South Dakota Department of Labor as an economic analyst.
Dr. Joshua Hall
Personally Prudent but Publicly Profligate: The Impact of the Great Depression on Reagan’s Generation
Dr. Jeremy Horpedahl
Page 14
Ronald Reagan’s graduation from Eureka College with a degree in economics and sociology in 1932 coincided with a tremendous expansion in the size and scope of government. According to economic historian Robert Higgs (1987), during the early part of the twentieth century gov-ernment spending at all levels (federal, state, and local) rarely exceeded six or seven percent of Gross National Product (GNP). Even after rising to 21 percent of GNP during WWI, the gov-ernment’s share of the economy returned to eight percent by the late 1920s. During the Great Depression, however, government’s share of the economy rose to between 14-15 percent and would never drop below that point again. Public sector economists have wrestled with an expla-nation for this seemingly permanent increase in this size and scope of government for some time. Explanations include changes in the composition of the voting population (Husted and Kenny 1997), political entrepreneurship (Holcombe 1999), crisis (Higgs 1987), and Keynesian ideology (Buchanan and Wagner ([1977] 2000). It is this last argument we explore more in depth in this paper. In their seminal work, Buchanan and Wagner argue that Keynesian economics eliminated the ―old time fiscal religion‖ that had existed prior to the Great Depression. The old time fiscal religion was that there was a correspondence between prudence in personal finance and public finance. Following the Great Depression and especially since the 1970s, federal budg-et deficits have become a permanent feature of public spending. We extend and augment Bu-
chanan and Wagner’s argument by showing that the Great Depression and Keynesian ideology not only caused a division between personal and public views of debt, for example, but also created an even greater disconnect be-tween the public and private because of its long term impact on the saving and consumption patterns of Reagan’s generation.
Edwin Meese III holds the Ronald Reagan Chair in Public Policy at The Heritage Foundation, where he is responsible for keeping the late president's legacy of conservative principles alive in public debate and discourse. He also is chairman of Heritage's Center for Legal and Judicial Studies. Meese joined Heritage in 1988. Meese spent much of his adult life working for Reagan, first after the former actor, sports announcer, and athlete was elected governor of California in 1966 and then when he sought and won the presidency in 1980. Meese served as the 75th Attorney General of the United States from February 1985 to August 1988. From January 1981 to February 1985, Meese held the position of counselor to the president - the senior job on the White House staff - and functioned as Reagan's chief policy advisor. In 1985, he received Government Executive magazine's annual award for excellence in management. He also is a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University in California, and he lectures, writes, and consults throughout the United States on a variety of subjects. As both attorney general and counselor to President Reagan, Meese was a member of the Cabinet and the National Security Council. He also served as chairman of the Domestic Policy Council and the National Drug Policy Board. After Reagan won the White House in the 1980 election, Meese headed the transition team. In the campaign, he was the Reagan-Bush Committee's senior official. During the Reagan governorship, Meese served as executive assistant and chief of staff from 1969 through 1974 and as legal affairs secretary from 1967 through 1968. Edwin Meese III was born December 2, 1931, to Edwin Jr. and Leone Meese in Oakland, California. He graduated from Yale University in 1953 and holds a law degree from the University of California-Berkeley. A retired Colonel in the Army Reserve, he remains active in numerous civic and educational organizations. He and his wife, Ursula, have two grown children and reside in McLean, Virginia. Peter Hannaford's career, spanning over four decades, includes a long association with Ronald Reagan; representation in Washington of foreign heads of state and some of the nation's and world's largest companies; senior roles in presidential campaigns and Republican National Conventions; and authorship of numerous articles and seven books. Now a Washington-based public relations/public affairs consultant, Hannaford for twenty years headed The Hannaford Company, Inc. (founded as Deaver & Hannaford, Inc.), serving a national and international clientele. During the five years between Ronald Reagan's governorship of California and his election as president of the United States, the firm handled all aspects of his scheduling, political liaison, and editorial support. Reagan's own office in those years was in the firm's headquarters. Before that, Hannaford was assistant to the governor and director of public affairs for Governor Reagan in Sacramento. Hannaford's books include four about Ronald Reagan: The Reagans: A Political Portrait (1983); Remembering Reagan (1994); Recollections of Reagan (1997); and The Quotable Ronald Reagan (1998). Others include Talking Back to the Media (1986; Japanese edition 1990); and My Heart Goes Home: A Hudson Valley Memoir (1997).
How Did the Midwest Shape Ronald Reagan?
Edwin Meese III
This culminating session will begin with remarks from former Attorney General Edwin Meese and Peter Hannaford about Reagan and the Midwest. Panel moderator James Capshew will then lead panelists Meese, Peter Hannaford, and Andrew Cayton, along with audience members, in a discussion of the broad Midwest themes that have emerged throughout the conference.
Peter Hannaford
Page 15
On Saturday, January 15, conference attendees may choose to take an optional bus trip to
the boyhood homes of President Reagan. The bus will depart from the Hotel Père
Marquette in Peoria at 8:30 a.m. and drive first to Tampico and then to Dixon, Illinois.
Attendees will return to the Hotel Père Marquette at 6:00 p.m.
Tampico, located on Route 172, was incorporated as a village on February 26, 1875, and was
named to the National Register of Historic Places, Washington D.C., on June 2, 1982.
Our 40th president, Ronald Wilson Reagan, was born to Jack and Nelle Reagan in Tampico
on February 6, 1911, in an apartment above a bakery on Main Street. The Reagans stayed in
Tampico off and on for the next nine years while Jack Reagan worked as a clerk in the
Pitney Store. Ronald "Dutch" and his brother Neil "Moon" attended school there and
enjoyed summer activities, such as swimming in the Hennepin Canal and horseback riding.
The quaint apartment, featuring the bedroom where the President was born, restored and
decorated to its original 1900's style, sits on the second floor at the site of the First National
Bank, which has also been restored. Next door is a gift store and museum of Reagan
memorabilia.
Reagan's parents moved to Dixon in 1920, when Reagan was 9 years old. The house the
family lived in, located at 816 S. Hennepin Avenue, has been fully restored with furnishings
of the period. Knowledgeable guides share stories about the house and family, including
where young Ronald liked to hide his pennies.
Optional Bus Trip to Dixon and Tampico, Illinois
Page 16
Registration Form
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Reagan and the Midwest Conference 2011
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300 East College Avenue, Eureka, Illinois 61530 USA
Fax completed form with payment information to: +1-309-467-6349.
Register online at: www.reagan.eureka.edu/conference
Conference Registration’s
Includes presentations, welcome breakfast, lunch, conference reception, and banquet.
Additional Tickets/Optional Tours
Bus Trip to Tampico and Dixon, Illinois, Saturday, 15 January
TOTAL AMOUNT DUE
Number Fee Total
$75.00
$50.00
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Eureka College300 East College AvenueEureka, Illinois 61530www.eureka.edu
and theREAGANMidwest
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
JANUARY 14–15, 2011 AT EUREKA COLLEGE
Bloomington32 mi.
Eureka College300 East College AvenueEureka, Illinois 61530www.eureka.edu
and theREAGANMidwest
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
JANUARY 14–15, 2011 AT EUREKA COLLEGE
Bloomington32 mi.
RONALD W. REAGAN
100
1911 2011
th✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION
AT EUREKA COLLEGE
–
Eureka College300 East College AvenueEureka, Illinois 61530www.eureka.edu
and theREAGANMidwest
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
JANUARY 14–15, 2011 AT EUREKA COLLEGE
Bloomington32 mi.