The meaning of citizenship will be a timely and recurring theme of the Oregon Historical Society’s popular Mark O. Hatfield Lecture Series in 2026, the 250th anniversary of the founding of the country.

The series will unfold during a time of increasing political polarization and questions about how the anniversary of the formal beginning of the Revolutionary War should be commemorated. The Oregon Legislature has created an official America 250 Oregon Commission to oversee an inclusive presentation, which is chaired by OHS Executive Director Kerry Tymchuk.

“This is a time to consider not only what it means to live in America, but to live in Oregon,” Tymchuk told Oregon ArtsWatch.

Speaking about the 2026 Mark O. Hatfield Lecture Series, Tymchuk said that OHS is pleased that one of the four scheduled speakers will be Rick Atkinson, a historian widely regarded as the foremost expert on the American Revolution. The second book in Atkinson’s Revolutionary Trilogy, The Fate of the Day: The War for America, Fort Ticonderoga to Charleston, 1777–1780, provides a sweeping narrative of the middle years of the war, and also offers a fresh perspective on the demands that a democracy makes on each of its citizens.

“We are honored to be able to present him during the anniversary of the year we decided to become American citizens, not British citizens,” said Tymchuk, who noted that Atkinson was featured in every episode of the Ken Burns’s documentary series The American Revolution on Oregon Public Broadcasting. It has been widely praised for presenting an inclusive perspective of the revolution, including the roles played by Native American tribes and both freed and escaped slaves.

The other three speakers will present their takes on aspects of American history that have been often overlooked, if not outright repressed.

Keisha Blain is recognized as one of the country’s most innovative and influential young historians. She is the author of Without Fear: Black Women and the Making of Human Rights. It tells the story of how Black women were at the forefront of national and international movements for freedom and social change for more than 200 years.

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“Black women and men weren’t even recognized as full citizens when the country was founded,” Tymchuk said.

Michael Luo is an executive editor at The New Yorker who writes regularly about politics, religion, and Asian American issues. His debut book, Strangers in the Land, is about the history of Chinese immigration to America from the mid-nineteenth century to modern times, persisting in the face of racist laws and frequently organized attacks.

“There were laws prohibiting Chinese from coming into the country, and into Oregon,” Tymchuk said.

And Megan Kate Nelson is a Boston-based writer whose forthcoming book, The Westerners: Myth-Making and Belonging on the American Frontier, challenges the stereotype of heroic white settlers taming the West. Focusing on seven remarkable people, it shows that the men and women included a mix of Indigenous peoples, Black Americans, Mexican Americans, and Canadian and Asian immigrants in the 19th century. They include Sacajawea, who was not just Lewis and Clark’s Native American guide, but an explorer in her own right.

“The Westward Expansion was not just white settlers crossing the country on Conestoga wagons,” Tymchuk said.

Many of the perspectives go against President Donald Trump’s executive orders directing that nonprofit historical societies, museums, theaters, and art galleries downplay anything that casts the country in a negative light. That is widely believed to include the forcible dislocation of Native Americans from their traditional lands, the legacy of slavery, and the World War II internment of Japanese Americans. The OHS and America 250 Oregon Commission reject those restrictions, with upcoming activities and events presenting a fuller story, both about the nation and the state.

“The goal is to present, discuss, and learn from real history,” Tymchuk said.

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• All lectures in the series will be presented at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall and streamed live. Series tickets are currently on sale. Single lecture tickets will go on sale to OHS members on Jan. 21, and to nonmembers on Feb. 4. Prices range from $36 for a single in-person and virtual tickets for OHS members to $350 for in-person Patron level full series tickets with special seating and features for nonmembers.
• The 2026 season schedule is: Keisha Blain, Feb. 17; Michael Luo, March 30; Megan Kate Nelson, April 14; and Rick Atkinson, May 12. All lectures start at 7 p.m.
• All lectures in the Hatfield series will be reviewed by Oregon ArtsWatch.
• Atkinson will also speak on May 13 in Bend at an event sponsored by the Deschutes County Historical Society, and on May 14 in Medford at an event sponsored by the Southern Oregon Historical Society.
• More information about the series and tickets can be found at ohs.org/events/hatfield-lecture-series.cfm.
• Additional 250^th Anniversary events in Oregon can be found at oregon250.org.

Lecture series grows in popularity

Since it started in 1998, the Mark O. Hatfield Lecture Series presented by the Oregon Historical Society has brought the nation’s leading historians and award-winning authors to Portland for thought-provoking evenings of historical discussions. Prominent past speakers include Heather Cox Richardson, David McCullough, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Jon Meacham, Cokie Roberts, and Isabel Wilkerson.

The series began at the historic First Congressional Church, across Southwest Madison Avenue from the OHS museum and its offices along the South Park Blocks in Portland. It moved to the nearby Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall as attendance increased and outgrew the church. Virtual presentations began during the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic and continued after the most serious threat passed, allowing anyone to see an individual lecture or the full series every season.

The series has been supported over the years by numerous private and nonprofit sponsors, including such well-recognized names as Tim and Mary Boyle, the Harold & Arlene Schnitzer Care Foundation, Oregon Public Broadcasting, Neil Kelly, and many more. That keeps it completely free of federal influence, although Tymchuk is clear that politics would never play a role in its programming.

Tymchuk is well aware that history can be controversial and provoke different responses from different people. The OHS building was vandalized and broken into during the Portland social justice protests that began after George Floyd was murdered by Minneapolis police on May 25, 2020. During an “Indigenous Peoples Day of Rage” protest on Oct. 11 of that year, windows were smashed, a door was broken open, and someone threw a flare inside that went out without causing any damage. The museum’s Afro-American Heritage Bicentennial Commemorative Quilt was stolen, but later recovered and restored. 

In response, Tymchuk issued a statement saying that OHS understands the message of the protests, citing its recent collaborations with community organizations and the nine federally recognized Tribes in Oregon. The statement also reaffirmed the organization’s commitment to telling honest Oregon history, including “the good, the bad and the ugly.”

Mark Hatfield’s legacy in the U.S. and Oregon

It is more than fitting that the Oregon Historical Society’s lecture series should be named after Mark Hatfield, the state’s longest-serving and arguably most influential elected official. A moderate Republican and pacifist elected to state and federal offices during several earlier times of political polarization, Hatfield was frequently at odds with his own party, but won widespread voter support for standing up for his deeply held beliefs, and for continuing to work with those who disagreed with him, an approach dubbed the “Oregon Way.”

According to Tymchuk, Hatfield also loved history, teaching it before, during, and after his political career, which stretched from the early 1950s to the late 1990s. It is documented by oral histories, exhibits, and extensive other records maintained by OHS that are available to the public.

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“Hatfield very much wanted people to study and learn from history, and we are proud to honor him with the series that he suggested after retiring from politics,” Tymchuk said.

While teaching at Willamette University in Salem, Hatfield was first elected to the Oregon House of Representatives in 1950, becoming the youngest state legislator at the time. He was elected to the Oregon State Senate representing Marion County in 1954, and was then elected Secretary of State two years later at age 34.

Hatfield was elected Oregon Governor in 1959 at the age of 36, the youngest in state history. He was reelected in 1962, becoming the first two-term governor in the state in the 20^th Century.

Facing the two-term limit in the Oregon Constitution, Hatfield ran for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by the retiring Democrat Maurine Neuberger in 1966. His victory was the first of five, resulting in a 30-year congressional career that included chairing the Senate Appropriations Committee. Numerous Oregon institutions benefited from his leadership, including the Oregon Health & Sciences University, Portland State University, TriMet, and Oregon State University.

Because of his independent streak, Hatfield was frequently regarded as a maverick. While serving in the Oregon House in 1953, he introduced and passed state legislation that prohibited discrimination based on race in public accommodations, before federal legislation and court decisions eventually did so on a national level. Although he gave the keynote speech at the 1964 Republican National Convention that nominated Barry Goldwater for President, he opposed the candidate’s extreme conservatism. In 1966, he was the only governor to vote against a resolution by the National Governors’ Conference supporting the Johnson Administration’s policy on the Vietnam War.

As a U.S. Senator, Hatfield opposed prayer in public schools and supported civil rights, including voting in favor of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 and the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1987. In 1970, with U.S. Senator George McGovern (D-South Dakota), he co-sponsored the McGovern-Hatfield Amendment, which called for a complete withdrawal of U.S. troops from Vietnam. In the 1980s, Hatfield co-sponsored nuclear freeze legislation with Senator Edward M. Kennedy, as well as co-authoring a book on the topic with him (Freeze!: How You Can Prevent Nuclear War). In 1981, he was the lone Republican to vote against the that fiscal year’s appropriations bill for the Department of Defense. And in 1991, he was one of only two Republicans to vote against authorizing military action against Iraq in the Gulf War.

Hatfield retired from politics in 1997, having never lost an election in 46 years, and returned to teaching at George Fox University and Portland State University, where the school of government is named after him. The year he retired, Hatfield suggested the Oregon Historical Society start a history lecture series. The nonprofit heritage and educational organization agreed, naming it after Hatfield to honor his legacy.

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Hatfield co-wrote and published his memoir in 2000. Against the Grain: Reflections of a Rebel Republican chronicles his opposition to discrimination, militarism, war, poverty. It also offered spiritual advice, and the hope that people would move away from big-government solutions to more personal ones.

Reviews described Hatfield as the most progressive Republican politician since Abraham Lincoln. He passed away on Aug. 7, 2011.

• More information about Hatfield can be found on the OHS website at ohs.org/museum/exhibits/mark-hatfield.cfm.
• A previous Oregon ArtsWatch story about the activities of the America 250 Oregon Commission can be found at orartswatch.org/oregon-strives-to-tell-full-story-of-americas-250th-anniversary.