From its founding, the Mercantile Library has served as a cultural center for the city. The first lecture series in the newly opened West was instituted by the members in the 1840s. The first speakers were prominent citizens of the young city and members themselves. As the city and Library prospered, they were able to attract ever more distinguished lecturers, including W. M. Thackeray, Herman Melville, and Harriet Beecher Stowe. That tradition continues with the annual Niehoff Lectures which have brought such distinguished writers and speakers as John Updike, Tom Wolfe, and Jonathan Winters to the Library. There are also courses, small concerts, author readings and book signings, a large number of which are scheduled at noon for the convenience of the many members who work and shop in the city's downtown.
The Mercantile Library is proud to be a partner in CETconnect.org, working with CET, Greater Cincinnati’s public television station, to connect our community to interviews, lectures, activities, special events and other unique presentations and programs. CETconnect.org, the first community public media website, engages, enriches, educates and entertains by bringing on-demand high-quality video and information to Greater Cincinnati—and the world. Experience it yourself at CETconnect.org.
Click here to see a complete list of Mercantile Library videos available on CETconnect.
First Wednesday Book Discussion
Book for discussion: Giants: The Parallel Lives of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln by John Stauffer
Discussion leader: NKU's Robert K. Wallace
John Stauffer will lecture at the Library on February 18th.
Wed, Feb 3rd 2010 | 12:00 PM
12th Floor Lecture Room
No charge for members; $5 for nonmembers. A box lunch is available by advance reservation for $8.
Walnut Street Poetry Society Kickoff
Please join us for an entertaining hour of poetry reading with Thane Maynard, Director of the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden and Kathrine Nero, WCPO television anchor, as we kick off the 6th year of the Walnut Street Poetry Society.
Wed, Feb 10th 2010 | 12:00 PM
Reading Room
No charge
Graphic Novel Discussion Group
Book for discussion: Bone:Out From Boneville by Jeff Smith
Discussion leader: Jeff Suess
Sat, Feb 13th 2010 | 1:00 PM
Reading Room
No charge
1835 Lecture
JOHN STAUFFER, Chair of the History of American Civilization and Professor of English and African and African American Studies at Harvard University, will speak about the fascinating relationship that existed between two of the seminal figures of the 19th century: Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. Among the leading scholars of antislavery and the Civil War era, Stauffer is the author or editor of eight books and numerous articles.
Lecture Sponsors: Carole and Ed Rigaud
JOHN STAUFFER is Chair of the History of American Civilization and Professor of English and African and African American Studies at Harvard University. Among the leading scholars of antislavery and the Civil War era, he is the author or editor of eight books and more than 50 articles. They include GIANTS: The Parallel Lives of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln (2008), which won the Iowa Author Award and a Boston Authors award and was a Boston Globe and Amazon.com bestseller; The State of Jones (2009, with Washington Post columnist Sally Jenkins), on Southern Unionism in Civil War Mississippi, which was a New York Times bestseller and nominated for a Pulitzer Prize; and The Black Hearts of Men (2002), a collective biography of the friendship between two black and two white abolitionists, which won three awards, including the Frederick Douglass Book Prize and the 2nd Place Lincoln Prize. Other books include The Writings of James McCune Smith (2006), featuring essays from the foremost black intellectual in the nineteenth century; The Problem of Evil (with Steven Mintz, 2006), on the dilemmas of slavery and antislavery; and Meteor of War: The John Brown Story (with Zoe Trodd). John’s essays have appeared in Time Magazine, The New York Times, The New Republic, The Wall Street Journal, Huffington Post, Raritan, New York Sun, and 21st: The Journal of Contemporary Photography. He has appeared on national radio and television shows, including the Diane Rehm Show and Book TV with Susan Swain, and he has lectured widely throughout the United States and Europe. He has also worked as a consultant for the filmmaker Gary Ross (writer, director, producer of Seabiscuit, Dave, Big, Pleasantville), who wrote a screenplay based on the research that went into The State of Jones. The movie will hopefully appear as a major motion picture in the next few years. John received his M.A. from Purdue University in 1993 and his Ph.D. from Yale University in 1999, where he worked with David Brion Davis, Jon Butler, and Alan Trachtenberg. He started teaching at Harvard in 1999 and received tenure in 2004.
Thu, Feb 18th 2010 | 7:00 PM
Reading Room
$15 for members;$20 for nonmembers
First Wednesday Book Discussion
Book for discussion: Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh
Discussion leader: PLCH's Susanne Wells
Wed, Mar 3rd 2010 | 12:00 PM
12th Floor Lecture Room
No charge for members; $5 for nonmembers. A box lunch is available by advance reservation for $8.
By the Book: Stuart Aitken
The best in their field talk about the books on their shelves and how those books influence their lives and careers.
Stuart Aitken joins dunnhumbyUSA as its Chief Operating Officer, bringing with him over 15 years of marketing, academic and technical experience across a variety of industries. Aitken is also a member of the dunnhumby Executive Board.
Prior to joining dunnhumbyUSA, Aitken held a variety of retail marketing positions, most recently as the Executive Vice President/ Chief Marketing Officer of Michael’s Stores, Inc., the #1 art and crafts retailer in the U.S. with over 1,000 stores in the U.S. and Canada. Prior to that, he spent nine years with North American grocery retailer Safeway, Inc. in a series of senior level marketing and loyalty reward positions, where he managed card & loyalty marketing, data mining / innovation and category management. Aitken also worked in the software industry as a consultant, as well as a Lecturer of technology at a college in Scotland.
Aitken has B.A. in Information Management from Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh, Scotland and a M.A. in Information Management from the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland. He was a member of the Retail Board of Advisors to AC Nielsen, IRI and NCR’s Teradata Division as well as the Board of Advisors to California State University East Bay’s Business and Economic Department.
dunnhumbyUSA combines proven natural abilities with big ideas to find clues and patterns as to what customers are buying and why. dunnhumbyUSA turns insights from over 200 million households worldwide into actionable strategies that create dramatic growth and sustainable loyalty, ultimately improving brand value and the customer experience.
dunnhumbyUSA is a joint venture of The Kroger Company and London-based dunnhumby. Employing more than 1,200 people in 26 offices in 16 countries in Europe, Asia and the Americas, dunnhumby serves a prestigious list of companies including The Kroger Co., Tesco, Coca-Cola, General Mills, Kimberly-Clark, Macy’s, Panera Bread Company, PepsiCo, Procter & Gamble, and The Home Depot.
Tue, Mar 9th 2010 | 12:00 PM
Reading Room
$10 for members;$12 others (Price includes lunch)
Book Launch and Lecture
The latest from the Mercantile press: At the Center: 175 Years at Cincinnati’s Mercantile Library written by historian ROBERT C. VITZ. The book is the culmination of two years of in-depth research. The author will share interesting facts and humorous anecdotes from the Library’s first 175 years. Copies of the history will be available for purchase and signing.
Thu, Mar 25th 2010 | 7:00 PM
Reading Room
No charge
Big Noise at the Library
It’s not every day that an institution celebrates its 175th anniversary! Few organizations have had the perseverance, adaptability, or good fortune it takes to achieve such longevity, so we’re throwing a party to mark the occasion. It’ll be an evening of great food and fun, music and dancing with performances by Queen City Brass, Tropicoso, Patricia Linhart, and the Faux Frenchman. A good time will be had by all!
Sponsors:
David and Randol Haffner
William and Karen Hoeb
Elizabeth C.B. and Paul G. Sittenfeld
George and Kathy Wilkinson
Cincinnati Equitable Insurance Company
Western & Southern Financial Group
Sat, Apr 17th 2010 | 7:00 PM
Reading Room
$100 per ticket or 2 for $175. Reservations accepted beginning March 8th.
By the Book: Jerome Kathman
The best in their field talk about the books on their shelves and how those books influence their lives and careers.
Jerry Kathman is President and Chief Executive Officer of LPK, the largest independent brand design agency in the world with offices in North America, Europe and Asia. Mr. Kathman is recognized within the industry as a leading authority on the role of design in brand building. His global experience has provided Fortune 500 companies with insights into both the opportunities and pitfalls of taking a brand beyond national boundaries.
Mr. Kathman sits on the Board of the Design Management Institute and is a faculty member of the In-Store Marketing Institute. He has appeared on CNN and CNBC and is often quoted or published in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Brandweek, Design Management Review, Die Welt (a leading national German newspaper), CB News (a leading French business magazine), and Hong Kong Economic Times. Mr. Kathman has authored numerous white papers in academic and professional journals on topical issues in brand design development and management.
He lectures frequently to business and academic audiences in North America, Europe and Asia, including Columbia University, University of California at Berkeley, New York University, the Hong Kong Design Centre, Singapore Design Festival, the Design Management Institute and the In-Store Marketing Institute.
Mr. Kathman is Vice-Chairman of the Board of Trustees for CET, Cincinnati’s Public Television, and serves on the Board of Trustees for both the Cincinnati Art Museum and the Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber. He has been named among the “100 Most Powerful People in the Tristate” by CincyBusiness magazine. Mr. Kathman continues to support his alma mater, the College of Design, Art, Architecture and Planning at the University of Cincinnati, recently serving on the search committee to appoint a new dean for the college.
LPK is an international design agency with a proven track record in Building Leadership Brands. By integrating strategy, design and innovation, LPK leverages relevant consumer, shopper and market insights to create value, sustain leadership and transform businesses.
The agency’s portfolio of category-leading brands and long-term client relationships attracts some of the best and brightest creative minds in the world. LPK’s combination of strategic skills, creative disciplines and cross-cultural perspectives results in brand-building innovation across media, geography and time.
With a presence in North America, Europe and Asia, LPK is the world’s largest employee-owned brand design agency. LPK has developed and managed brand design franchises for some of the world’s most successful businesses, including IBM, Pantene, Pampers, Olay, Hershey, Valvoline, Quicken, Heinz, AT&T, Hallmark, US Bank, Samsung, Novartis and Kellogg.
LPK has been recognized in The Wall Street Journal as a “Winning Workplace,” and by Inc. Magazine as “one of America’s Fastest Growing Private Companies.”
Locally, LPK, through the LPK Foundation, is committed to the Greater Cincinnati community by providing gifts of time, talent and monetary support to the arts, environmental causes and non-profit organizations that provide for those in need. LPK has developed the brand design franchises for some of the area’s most beloved institutions including Cincinnati Opera, CET, Cincinnati Art Museum, Taft Museum of Art, Cincinnati Public Schools and United Way of Greater Cincinnati.
Thu, Apr 29th 2010 | 12:00 PM
Reading Room
$10 for members; $12 for others (price includes lunch)
Reading and signing
Cincinnati’s own
CURTIS SITTENFELD, author of the bestselling novels American Wife, Prep, and The Man of My Dreams, will read from and discuss her work at this literary evening. Prep was chosen as one of the Ten Best Books of 2005 by The New York Times, and American Wife was chosen as one of the Ten Best Books of 2008 by Time. Sittenfeld’s non-fiction has appeared in many publications, including The New York Times, The Atlantic Monthly, Salon, and Slate.
Thu, May 20th 2010 | 7:00 PM
Reading Room
$10 for members; $15 for nonmembers.
Harriet Beecher Stowe Lecture:Writing to Change the World
DAVID SIMON, best known as the creator of the highly acclaimed HBO series The Wire, will deliver the eighth installment of the Harriet Beecher Stowe lecture.
Simon is a Baltimore-based author, journalist and writer-producer of television, specializing in criminal justice and urban issues. In its 5 seasons, The Wire chronicled with graphic reality and memorable characters Baltimore’s streets, politics, police department, schools, and
newspaper.
Born in Washington, he came to Baltimore after graduating from the University of Maryland, to work as a police reporter at the Baltimore Sun. In 1988 he took a leave of absence from newspaper to write Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets
Published in 1991, the Edgar-award winning account of a year inside the Baltimore Police Department Homicide Unit became the basis for NBC's Homicide: Life on The Street, which was broadcast from 1993 to 1999. Simon worked as a writer, and later as a producer on the award-winning drama and won a Humanitas Award and the WGA Award for best writing in an episodic drama.
In 1993, Simon took a second leave from the Baltimore Sun to research and write The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood. Published in 1997 and co-authored with Edward Burns, the true account of life in a West Baltimore community dominated by an open-air drug market was named a Notable Book of the Year by the New York Times. Simon then co-wrote and produced The Corner as a six-hour miniseries for HBO. That production, which aired in 2000, won an Emmy as the year's best miniseries. Simon won an Emmy for best writing in a movie or miniseries.
Simon continues to work as a freelance journalist and author, writing for publications as varied as the Washington Post, the New Republic and Details.
Mon, Jun 14th 2010 | 7:00 PM
Reading Room
$20 members;$25 nonmembers
The Modern Novel
Meet one of the most imaginative and unique writers at work today. MARY DORIA RUSSELL is the author of The Sparrow, Children of God, A Thread of Grace, and Dreamers of the Day. Her novels have won numerous awards including the Arthur C. Clarke Award. The Sparrow was selected as one of Entertainment Weekly’s ten best books of the year, and
A Thread of Grace was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.
Tue, Sep 14th 2010 | 7:00 PM
Reading Room
$15 for members;$20 for nonmembers
Niehoff Lecture XXIII
Humorist, memoirist, world traveler, and traveler writer par excellence BILL BRYSON headlines the Library’s 2010 season as the twenty-third Niehoff Lecturer on Saturday, November 13th in the Hall of Mirrors.
Regaling audiences with his funny, truthful, and eye-opening tales, Bryson charms with the same warmth, wit, and dry, self-effacing humor that has made his writing so appealing.
Bryson’s works include A Walk in the Woods, I’m A Stranger Here Myself, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid and his latest book, At Home: A Short History of Private Life, to be
released in 2010.
"A cross between de Tocqueville and Dave Barry, Bryson writes about…America in a way that’s both trenchantly observant and pound-on-the-floor, snort-root-beer-out-of-your-nose funny.”
—San Francisco Examiner
“Bill Bryson could write an essay about dryer lint or fever reducers and still make us laugh out loud.”
—Chicago Sun-Times
“Bill Bryson’s laugh-out-loud pilgrimage through his Fifties childhood in heartland America is a national treasure. It’s full of insights, wit, and wicked adolescent fantasies.”
—Tom Brokaw
Title Sponsors: Buck and Patricia Niehoff
