This Tuesday, November 16, at 7:30 p.m., John B. Hench will be presenting the twenty-seventh Annual James Russell Wiggins Lecture in the Program in the History of the Book in American Culture at the American Antiquarian Society.
John B. Hench is the retired vice president for collections and programs at AAS. His talk, “Random Notes from a Book History Bureaucrat,” will combine elements of memoir, reflections on the development and influence of the Society’s Program in the History of the Book in American Culture, and notes on some of the themes in his recent scholarship on publishing in the World War II era.
John B. Hench worked at AAS for 33 years, beginning as editor of publications in 1973. He is the author of Books as Weapons: Propaganda, Publishing, and the Battle for Global Markets in the Era of World War II (2010). Additionally, he co-edited The Press and the American Revolution (1981) and Printing and Society in Early America (1983).
The Wiggins Lecture is named for James Russell Wiggins (1903-2000), chairman of the Society from 1970 to 1977. He was editor of the Washington Post and, until his death at the age of 96, editor of the Ellsworth (Maine) American. Wiggins also served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in 1968.
More information and directions are available on the AAS website by clicking here.
