FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MANHATTAN COLLEGE WELCOMES AWARD-WINNING HISTORIAN MARY BETH  NORTON TO PRESENT LECTURE ON THE MYTH AND REALITY OF WITCHCRAFT

RIVERDALE, N.Y. – Seasoned historian Dr. Mary Beth Norton will deliver a lecture titled, “Myth and Reality of Salem Witchcraft,” at Manhattan College on Thursday, April 14 at 4:00 p.m. Presented by the College’s Robert J. Christen Program in Early American History and Culture, the lecture will be held on campus in the Carmen Rodriguez Room in Miguel Hall (Room 311). This program is free and open to the public.

Norton, who is the Mary Donlon Alger Professor of American history at Cornell University, is the author of several books, including In the Devil’s Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692 and Founding Mothers & Fathers: Gendered Power and the Forming of American Society, which was a 1997 Pulitzer Prize finalist. She also is the author of The British-Americans: The Loyalist Exiles in England, Liberty’s Daughters: The Revolutionary Experience of American Women and A People and a Nation.

In her latest book, In the Devil’s Snare, Norton reexamines the infamous Salem witch trials of 1692. The Boston Globe called the book “fresh and persuasively argued…” and the Los Angeles Times reviewed it as “a landmark achievement.” Norton is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 2003 Ambassador Book Award in American studies, the 1970 Allan Nevins Prize for best-written dissertation in American history and the 1981 Berkshire Conference Prize for best book by a woman historian. She has received a number of major fellowships including, the Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellowship and the Starr Foundation Fellowship. Norton, who has also taught at the University of Connecticut, earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan in 1964. She completed both her master’s degree and doctorate from Harvard University in 1965 and 1969, respectively.

The Christen Program is named in honor of former faculty member Robert J. Christen, who served for many years on the Board of Education of the City of New York. For his many contributions to education, the Riverdale Public School 81 is named in his honor.

If you are a member of the press and wish to cover this event, please contact Melanie A. Farmer at (718) 862-7232. Manhattan College is located at West 242nd Street near Broadway in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, one mile from the Westchester County line and accessible by MTA subway lines 1 and 9.

Manhattan College was founded in 1853 in the Lasallian heritage of excellence in teaching, inspired by St. John Baptist de La Salle. Manhattan College is an independent, Catholic, coeducational institution of higher learning offering more than 40 major undergraduate programs in the areas of arts, business, education, engineering and science as well as graduate programs in education and engineering.

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