Fred Barnes: The Midwestern Roots of Ronald Reagan
[Fred Barnes is executive editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD.]
...“There wouldn’t have been a President Reagan without his upbringing in the Midwest,” says Craig Shirley, who’s written books about Reagan’s presidential campaigns in 1976 and 1980. Somewhere around 1,000 books about Reagan have been published, and several of his biographers, especially Lou Cannon and Anne Edwards, have emphasized the Midwestern influence. The academic community, however, has been slow to catch on.
For a “Reagan and the Midwest” seminar in January, Eureka College put out a call for scholarly papers on the subject. The response was underwhelming. Only seven academics submitted proposals. All seven were accepted, and the authors discussed them at the Eureka seminar. One dealt, interestingly enough, with Reagan’s experience at Eureka. “I don’t think it is stretching things to say that Eureka made Reagan and, in turn, Reagan made Eureka,” wrote James H. Capshew of Indiana University.
It is stretching things, but it’s also true that Eureka was enormously important to Reagan. He visited the school a dozen times after graduating, served on the board of trustees for 18 years, and was a major donor. “Everything that has been good in my life began here,” Reagan said at the Eureka commencement in 1982. It was at Eureka that, as a freshman, he spoke in support of a student strike (“When I walked off the stage that night, my life had changed,” Reagan wrote in his autobiography) and that he cultivated the love of theatrics and acting that his mother had instilled in him....
Read entire article at Weekly Standard
...“There wouldn’t have been a President Reagan without his upbringing in the Midwest,” says Craig Shirley, who’s written books about Reagan’s presidential campaigns in 1976 and 1980. Somewhere around 1,000 books about Reagan have been published, and several of his biographers, especially Lou Cannon and Anne Edwards, have emphasized the Midwestern influence. The academic community, however, has been slow to catch on.
For a “Reagan and the Midwest” seminar in January, Eureka College put out a call for scholarly papers on the subject. The response was underwhelming. Only seven academics submitted proposals. All seven were accepted, and the authors discussed them at the Eureka seminar. One dealt, interestingly enough, with Reagan’s experience at Eureka. “I don’t think it is stretching things to say that Eureka made Reagan and, in turn, Reagan made Eureka,” wrote James H. Capshew of Indiana University.
It is stretching things, but it’s also true that Eureka was enormously important to Reagan. He visited the school a dozen times after graduating, served on the board of trustees for 18 years, and was a major donor. “Everything that has been good in my life began here,” Reagan said at the Eureka commencement in 1982. It was at Eureka that, as a freshman, he spoke in support of a student strike (“When I walked off the stage that night, my life had changed,” Reagan wrote in his autobiography) and that he cultivated the love of theatrics and acting that his mother had instilled in him....