Speaker

Speaker

ROBERT LOPRESTI is a popular speaker on many topics.  He can do presentations by zoom and (COVID-permitting) in person.  Some of his topics are:

WHEN WOMEN DIDN’T COUNT.  Lopresti’s award-winning book reveals how U.S. federal statistics have hidden and distorted information about women for hundreds of years.  In 1940 the Census-takers recorded over 1,000 women working for the railroads.  In the published records they were counted as “tailoresses…”

CENSUS CONTROVERSIES.  In 1790 President Washington lamented that the Census would undercount the U.S. population.  In 2020 the Trump administration guaranteed it would do it again.  In between there were centuries of lawsuits, politics, and battles over privacy…

WHICH PRESIDENTS OWNED SLAVES?  Lopresti’s webpage on this subject has been cited many times in newspapers and scholarly articles.  He explains the attitudes of the first 18 presidents on slavery – and why it matters.

CATCHING A MAP THIEF.  Lopresti headed the year-long investigation that led to the identification and conviction of the man who stole rare materials from over 100 libraries.

THE NANCY RANDOLPH SCANDAL.  In 1792 one of Virginia’s oldest families became involved in a scandal that included a murder trial and accusations of infanticide, incest, abortion, prostitution, and miscegenation.  Those tangled up in it included Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and Chief Justice John Marshall.

HOW OVERDUE LIBRARY BOOKS CAUSED THE CIVIL WAR.  A tongue-in-cheek title but a strictly accurate story of the scandal of the House of Representatives Library of 1861 which involved the New York Times, a Congressional hearing, and the Dred Scott Decision.

TEN THINGS I LEARNED WRITING MYSTERY STORIES.  Lopresti’s eighty-plus published short stories have appeared in most of the major mystery magazines and anthologies.  They have won four prizes and been reprinted in Best American Mystery Stories.  He will pass on some of what he has learned in forty years as a published author.

REX STOUT AND NERO WOLFE.  Rex Stout was 48 years old when the first of his 78 Nero Wolfe mysteries appeared.  They have sold more than 100 million copies.  His fascinating life included getting rich by developing a banking system and battling with both J. Edgar Hoover and Joseph Goebbels.  Lopresti has written literary criticism about Stout, won the Black Orchid Novella Award from the Wolfe Pack, and appeared in The Misadventures of Nero Wolfe.