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Falmouth Forum Series 2009-2010
Herman T. Epstein Endowed Memorial Lecture
"Starting at Standing Rock: Following Custer and Sitting Bull to the Little Big Horn"
January 8, 2010 - Lillie Auditorium, 7:30 PM
Lectures are free and open to the public.
Nathaniel Philbrick, author
Press Release
Lecture Abstract
In June of 2007, Philbrick traveled to the Standing Rock Sioux Agency in North Dakota to research an upcoming book about the Battle of the Little Big Horn. Over the next two weeks, he ventured up the Missouri River to Fort Lincoln, home to General George Custer’s Seventh Cavalry, and then followed Custer’s route more than three hundred miles to the Little Bighorn National Monument in Crow Agency, Montana. In this illustrated lecture about his trip, Philbrick, who is known for his bestselling books about maritime topics, will talk about the challenges of moving from the sea to the American West as well as the unexpected importance that photographs and native artwork have had in shaping his understanding of the battle and its participants.
About Nathaniel Philbrick
After graduate school, Philbrick worked for four years at Sailing World magazine. He was a freelancer for a number of years, during which time he wrote and edited several sailing books, including Yaahting: A Parody (1984). After moving to Nantucket in 1986, he became interested in the history of the island and wrote Away Off Shore: Nantucket Island and Its People. He was offered the opportunity to start the Egan Maritime Institute in 1995, and in 2000 he published In the Heart of the Sea, followed by Sea of Glory and Mayflower. He is presently at work on a book about the Battle of Little Big Horn.
Awards and Honors:
Mayflower was a finalist for both the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in History and the Los Angeles Times Book Award and was winner of the Massachusetts Book Award for nonfiction. In the Heart of the Sea won the National Book Award for nonfiction; Revenge of the Whale won a Boston Globe-Horn Book Award; Sea of Glory won the Theodore and Franklin D. Roosevelt Naval History Prize and the Albion-Monroe Award from the National Maritime Historical Society. Philbrick has also received the Byrne Waterman Award from the Kendall Whaling Museum, the Samuel Eliot Morison Award for distinguished service from the USS Constitution Museum, the Nathaniel Bowditch Award from the American Merchant Marine Museum, the William Bradford Award from the Pilgrim Society, the Boston History Award from the Bostonian Society, and the New England Book Award from the New England Independent Booksellers Association.
Admission to this Falmouth Forum presentation is free and open to the public. A buffet dinner is available before the lecture at 6:00 p.m. in the Swope Center located near the auditorium. Dinner tickets are $25 and must be purchased in advance at either Eight Cousins Children’s Books, Main Street, Falmouth, or at the MBL’s Communications Office in the Candle House in Woods Hole. Dinner seats are limited and tickets are only available until they sell out or until 5:00 on the Tuesday before the lecture. For more information, contact the MBL Communications Office at: (508) 289-7423 or
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