Historian Carol Berkin, a professor at CUNY Graduate Center and Baruch College, was the Sackler Family Endowed Lecture Series speaker at Rye Country Day School November 30.

Historian Carol Berkin, a professor at CUNY Graduate Center and Baruch College, was the Sackler Family Endowed Lecture Series speaker at Rye Country Day School November 30. Author of numerous books on Colonial America and the Constitution, Dr. Berkin spoke to Upper School students about her most recent book, “Civil War Wives: The Lives and Times of Angelina Grimke Weld, Varina Howell Davis, and Julia Dent Grant”.

In addition to sharing insights about these three fascinating women who were married to famous men (abolitionist Theodore Weld, President of the Confederacy Jefferson Davis, and Civil War general and U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant), Dr. Berkin also discussed 19th-century society’s expectations regarding the role of women. Humanities Department Chair Dr. Richard Strean, one of the honorees of the Sackler Family Lecture Endowment, arranged for Dr. Berkin’s visit to the school.