Frieze Lecture Series: Cosmos and the work of Alexander von Humboldt, presented by Dr. Stephen Hager

To kick off the 150th anniversary year of the Rock Island Public Library, the 25^th annual Frieze Lecture series focuses on ideas that had a profound impact in their own times – much like the opening of the Rock Island Public Library, the first tax-supported public library to do so in Illinois.

The 25th annual Frieze Lectures, a partnership between the Rock Island Public Library and Augustana College, will offer four faculty presentations on works that fundamentally affected the cultural landscape. The free lecture series takes place on four Thursdays at 2:00 pm, October 20, 27, November 3, and 10, in the Community Room of the Downtown Library, 401 19^th Street. All lectures are open to the public, free of charge.

“The Frieze Lecture series with Augustana College began with the celebration of the library’s 125^th anniversary, so it was a particularly appropriate way to kick off our 150^th,” said Angela Campbell, Rock Island Public Library director. “We are honored to continue our association with Augustana College, which brings college-level lectures into the public learning setting of the library.”

Just as having a truly public library available to Rock Island citizens in 1872 was seen as a life-changing event, this year’s lecture themes focus on ideas that had a seismic impact in their own times. Each lecture features an Augustana faculty member discussing books that mark significant artistic, scientific, or political movements. The 2022 schedule is as follows:

·October 20: William Styron's Sophie's Choice, presented by Dr. Paul Olsen, Professor of English. Responding to the reset surge in book banning, this talk with focus on the "truths" of Iconic American author William Styron.

·October 27: The 1619 Project, edited by Nikole Hannah-Jones, and presented by Dr. Lauren Hammond, associate professor of history. The long-form journalism project reframed the country’s history around the perspectives and contributions of Black Americans.

·November 3: Cosmos and the work of Alexander von Humboldt, presented by Dr. Stephen Hager, professor of biology. Considered by some as the first environmentalist, von Humboldt’s work is a holistic observation of all of nature.

·November 10: Beloved by Toni Morrison, presented by Dr. Ashley Burge, assistant professor of English. Morrison’s literary masterpiece has faced multiple banning attempts for its frank depiction of the horrors of slavery.

All four Frieze Lectures in the Ideas That Changed Us series begin at 2:00 pm, and are free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served.

Additionally, the library will commemorate its 150^th anniversary immediately following the final frieze lecture on November 10. From 3:00 to 6:00 pm, the library will celebrate with cake, a giant card signing, and by collecting public memories, items, and greetings for a library time capsule for a future historic monument.

Rock Island Library History:

The Rock Island Public Library opened to the public on November 25, 1872, inside a rented room in the Mitchell and Lynde bank building, off 2^nd Avenue in Rock Island. Though other public libraries in Illinois had started the formation process earlier, Rock Island was the first to actually open to the public, with opening day occurring just eight months after the Illinois Local Library Act. The law made tax-supported public libraries possible in Illinois.

Rock Island’s accelerated opening date was made possible by a generous donation from the private Young Men’s Literacy Association, which offered their library collection, equipment, and lone staff member to the City of Rock Island in August 1872. The Literary Association’s young librarian, Miss Ellen Gale, became the first director of the new public library, a position she would hold until her retirement in 1937. The library will celebrate its 150^th year with a year of events stretching from the 2022 Frieze Lectures to an event on November 25, 2023.

The Frieze Lecture Series was created by the late Ruth Evelyn Katz, a library board member, to celebrate the library's 125th anniversary. The name comes from the architectural feature around the top of the downtown library building. The authors carved into the sandstone are Homer, Longfellow, Emerson, Virgil, Hugo, Shakespeare, Goethe, Burns, Hawthorne, Tegner, and Bancroft. Though not well known today, the names of Tegner, a Swedish poet, and Bancroft, a naval historian, would have been familiar to 1903 residents.