Kenneth Lyftogt
The free lecture begins at 2 p.m. in Whitehouse Business Center Room 214 and will address the significance of the Missouri Compromise to the nation with a particular focus on Iowa and how the repeal of the Missouri Compromise led to the Civil War.
The Iowa author recently retired from his role as a lecturer at the University of Northern Iowa. His books include “From Blue Mills to Columbia: Cedar Falls and the Civil War,” “Iowa’s Forgotten General: Matthew Mark Trumbull and the Civil War” and the edited diary of John Rath.
The topic of his lecture will be drawn from his most recent book, “Iowa and the Civil War: Free Child of the Missouri Compromise, 1850-1862,” the first of three planned volumes on Iowa and the war. Copies will be available for purchase after the lecture.
The lecture is sponsored by the Wartburg College Alpha Xi Chi chapter of the Phi Alpha Theta National History Honor Society.
A Waverly native, James W. Lynes Jr. was a 1988 graduate and class valedictorian of Wartburg College who majored in history and English. He earned a master’s degree in history from the University of Iowa in 1989. Lynes went on to work as an admissions administrator at colleges in Iowa, Nebraska and Missouri. After his death in 2012, his family established the annual James W. Lynes Jr. Memorial Lecture in History.