NHN Associates Gus Frederick and Geoff Wexler will make presentations about their projects and have discussion and question and answer sessions with event attendees.
Gus Frederick will make a presentation about his Free Thought Magazine Project. In the course of research for a presentation on Oregon’s Freethought History, and subsequent digging—mainly in digitized Freethought publications from GoogleBooks—Frederick decided to create a WordPress site around select pieces from one unique publication, the “Free Thought Magazine,” from Chicago. Horace L. Green, the publisher, died October 30, 1903, when an open gas jet asphyxiated his wife and him. The last eleven years of Free Thought Magazine—Volumes 11 to 21—have a wide range of different topics covering the universe of the so-called “Golden Age of American Freethought.” All the big names are there, as well as others, pretty much unknown now. Green’s tagline was “Hospitable to all truth and especially devoted to the exposing of ancient error by the light of modern science and intelligent criticism.”
Geoff Wexler, in History is Bunk – Part 2, will follow up on his Northwest History Network talk in 2011 with a discussion of what he sees as popular misconceptions about history. Using illustrations from the collections of the Oregon Historical Society, he will demonstrate the immediacy of history in our lives and the importance of historical research in understanding the present moment.
Gus Frederick is a native Oregonian, born in Salem in 1954, 100 years after his hometown of Silverton was founded. He is by training a filmmaker and photographer, although he has broadened that term by necessity to multimedia artist. He works as a conceptual artist, photographer, filmmaker and animator for the Oregon Office of State Fire Marshal’s Fire & Life Safety Education Branch. A long-time local history enthusiast, he continues to be fascinated with many of the incredible stories from the Silverton Country. Other current projects include a video documentary on Homer Davenport, as well as an annotated version of Homer Davenport’s second collection of cartoons, The Dollar or the Man? The Question of To-Day. He remains deeply involved in his community of Silverton, serving as a member of the Board of Directors for the Silverton Country Historical Society, promotion chair for the annual Homer Davenport Community Festival, and as a City of Silverton Planning Commissioner, an appointed volunteer position.
Geoff Wexler is the director of the Davies Family Research Library at the Oregon Historical Society in Portland. He began his archival career in the mid-1980s at the Wisconsin Historical Society in Madison, and has since served at the University of California, San Diego; the Bancroft Library in Berkeley; and as the archivist for theater artist Robert Wilson in New York City. He holds a bachelor’s degree in history from UC Berkeley, and master’s degrees in history and library science from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He is dedicated to preserving and providing access to OHS’s wealth of historical records.
The event is free and open to NHN Associates and the general public, and will be held at the Hollywood Library in Portland (https://multcolib.org/library-location/hollywood) on Saturday, December 5, 2015, in the library’s meeting room from 10:30 am – 12:30 pm. The Hollywood Library is located at 4040 NE Tillamook Street, Portland, Oregon, 97212. RSVP requested via email at bryans1212 at q.com or by phone at 503-747-9652.
