The Joe R. Sexton Lecture with Maurice Isserman

The Joe R. Sexton Lecture will take place on Thursday, May 13 at 6 p.m. in a virtual event for the Ferguson Library on Zoom. Maurice Isserman, author of Author of The Winter Army: The World War II Odyssey of the 10th Mountain Division, America's Elite Alpine Warriors will be the featured speaker. The Joe R. Sexton Lecture Series, generously funded with a gift from a friend of Mr. Sexton’s and the Friends of the Ferguson Library, is in memory of Joseph (Joe) R. Sexton. Register online at https://tinyurl.com/38edc3kw. Zoom login information will be provided in the registration confirmation.

About The Winter Army: At the start of World War II, the US Army had two cavalry divisions—and no mountain troops. The German Wehrmacht, in contrast, had many well-trained and battle-hardened mountain divisions, some of whom by 1943 blocked the Allied advance in the Italian campaign. Starting from scratch, the US Army developed a unique military fighting force, the 10th Mountain Division, drawn from the ranks of civilian skiers, mountaineers, and others with outdoor experience. The resulting mix of Ivy League students, park rangers, Olympic skiers, and European refugees formed the first specialized alpine fighting force in US history. By the time it deployed to Italy at the beginning of 1945, this ragtag group had coalesced into a tight-knit unit. In the months that followed, at a terrible cost, they spearheaded the Allied drive in Italy to final victory.

Ranging from the ski slopes of Colorado to the towering cliffs of the Italian Alps, The Winter Army is a saga of an unlikely band of soldiers forged in the heat of combat into a brotherhood whose legacy lives on in US mountain fighters to this day.

Maurice Isserman, PhD, is the Publius Virgilius Rogers Professor of American History at Hamilton College, where he teaches US history, including the history of mountaineering. A former Fulbright grant winner, his prize-winning books include Fallen Giants (co-authored with Stewart Weaver), which was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and the winner of the Banff Mountain Book Festival prize for best mountaineering history, the National Outdoor Book Award for best history, and the Andrew Eiseman Writers Award; The Other America, recipient of a Choice magazine Outstanding Academic Book Award; and Cronkite's War (co-authored with Walter Cronkite IV). He has written for the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, the Christian Science Monitor,Newsday, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and the American Historical Review,as well as for numerous academic journals and contributed volumes.

Mr. Sexton was a volunteer with the Friends of the Ferguson Library and worked for 10 years with his wife, Ann, on the Library's Books for Babies program. This program, which has become a model for other Friends groups nationwide, provides a free first book to every baby born at Stamford Hospital.

Mr. Sexton worked for Exxon Chemical Asia Pacific until his retirement in 1981. His foreign assignments took him to Sumatra, Java, Australia and Pakistan. A WWII Navy Pilot, he later flew in the Navy Ready Reserve.

Mr. Sexton received his degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Minnesota and his MBA from Harvard Business School.

The Lecture Series was created to perpetuate Mr. Sexton's spirit, interests, and his unfailing enthusiasm to try new things.