SPRINGFIELD, OH. – Benjamin H. Irvin, Ph.D., associate professor of history at Indiana University and historian of the American Revolution, will be the keynote speaker for the William A. Kinnison Endowed Lecture in History, the next event of the 2025-2026 Wittenberg Series. The event will take place at 7 p.m. Monday, Feb. 23, in Bayley Auditorium inside the Barbara Deer Kuss Science Center. His address is titled “I Still Have an Independent Spirit: Disabled Veterans and Pension Assistance after the Revolutionary War.”

The former executive editor of the Journal of American History, Irvin is also the author of Clothed in Robes of Sovereignty: The Continental Congress and the People Out of Doors (Oxford, 2011), in which he examines the fraught relationship between Congress and the American people. The book was named a 2011 Choice Outstanding Academic Title and a finalist for the 2012 George Washington Book Prize. Irvin’s current project—tentatively titled, Independent Spirit: Revolutionary War Veterans and Disability in the Early United States—reconstructs the efforts of sick and wounded soldiers to eke their subsistence from state and federal disability pensions.

Irvin’s research has garnered support from the C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience, the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, the New England Regional Research Consortium, the Newberry Library and Jack Miller Center, and the Virginia Historical Society. Irvin has taught at Brandeis University, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Arizona, and Washington College. 

President Christian M.M. Brady will welcome all those in attendance, and Thomas Taylor, professor of history at Wittenberg, will introduce Irvin.

Irvin will also attend a lunch and one of Taylor’s classes earlier in the day. In addition, there will be a Q&A following his keynote address. The event is also part of Wittenberg’s America 250 celebration. America 250 is a group that has come together to help the nation commemorate and celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, which occurred on July 4, 1776.

The William A. Kinnison Endowed Lecture in History was established under the auspices of the Board of Directors of Wittenberg University with the assistance of numerous benefactors to honor Dr. Kinnison on the occasion of his retirement as president of the University in 1995, following 25 years of service to his alma mater.

The Wittenberg Series was created in 1982 during President William A. Kinnison’s tenure. Since its inception, Nobel Laureates, scientists, significant literary figures, most of America’s foremost modern dance companies, as well as hundreds of prominent psychologists, educators, economists, writers, theologians, urban planners, and historians, have visited the campus to participate.

All events of The Wittenberg Series are open to the public free of charge. Doors open 30 minutes prior to the beginning of each lecture or performance.

For more information on the Wittenberg Series, click here. To make special arrangements or become a friend of the Wittenberg Series, contact the Office of University Communications at ucomm@wittenberg.edu.