#99-03-14
For Release: March 25, 1999
Contact: Peter Bailley
Historian George Steckley to Discuss
English Admiralty Court, April 16 at Knox College
George Steckley, professor of history at Knox College, will give the
Burkhardt Lecture, "Litigious Mariners," at 4 p.m., Friday, April 16, in the
Common Room, Old Main, on the Knox campus in Galesburg, Illinois. The lecture
is free and open to the public.
The lecture is based on Steckley's study of the English Admiralty Court, which
settled hundreds of wage disputes between sailors and ship owners during the
seventeenth century. The judges' decisions, according to Steckley, shed light
on the treatment of mariners in an era when shipping was central to the
development of English imperialism.
Steckley has taught at Knox since 1973 and has been researching the English
Admiralty Court for more than 20 years. He has visited England several times to
work in the Admiralty Court's manuscript archives and to compile a computer
database of cases. Steckley earned his bachelor's degree at Oberlin College and
his doctorate at the University of Chicago.
The Burkhardt Lecture is funded by an endowment established by Richard W. and
Dorothy Johnson Burkhardt, in memory of Mr. Burkhardt's parents, Edgar and Ruth
Burkhardt. Richard Burkhardt has served as dean and professor at Ball State
University. Dorothy Burkhardt, professor emerita of modern languages at Ball
State, is a life trustee of Knox College. Both are 1939 Knox graduates.
The Burkhardt Endowment supports biennial public lectures on historical topics
by members of the Knox faculty, as well as faculty development activities in
the history department.
Founded in 1837, Knox is an independent, four-year, liberal arts college,
located in Galesburg, Illinois, with 1,100 students from 42 states and 33
nations. Knox's "Old Main," a National Historic Landmark, is the only building
remaining from the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates.
-end-
|
