From artifacts to anecdotes, Tom Kitchen will trace the development of presidential elections from the founding of our Republic to recent campaigns during History at Home at the Fond du Lac Public Library.
Kitchen will have on display historic memorabilia for guests to view as well as a presentation on the evolution of political campaigns, highlighting some of the interesting elections, events, methods and tactics used.
A native of Fond du Lac, Kitchen is a graduate of UW-Oshkosh and served as a history teacher at St. Mary's Springs High School for 37 years, retiring in 2016.
He was president of the Fond du Lac County Historical Society from 1987-1992, is a past member of the Fond du Lac Historic Landmarks Commission & Historic Preservation Commission, and was a member of the Wisconsin delegation to 10 political national nominating conventions.
He has been Member of the Electoral College 1976, a collector of political Americana since the early 1960s, has served on the national board of the American Political Items Collectors (regional vice-president), has had many newspaper articles on his collection, contributed his expertise and photos of his collection for Stan Gores' books on "Collecting Political Memorabilia," and served as an appraiser for MPTV Antiques appraisal Fair for a number of years.
History at Home programs focus on stories about the area's past every month. Programs are held on the second Thursday of every month at 6 pm in the McLane Room.
The programs are free; no registration required. Many History at Home programs are captured on video and shared on the library's YouTube channel. That link can be found at fdlpl.org/miss-program.