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Tuesday Talks: Dr. Ben Hruska, Historian and Author, “Reluctant Paradise: Block Island in the 1950’s and 1960’s”

Derelict buildings, fated paint, and a slower pace of life are all features of  Block Island in the postwar period. While certainly rapid postwar transformations and expectations were bleeding over onto Block Island, this occurred at nowhere near the rate as what was transpiring on the mainland in southern New England. Reluctant Paradise, via a blend of micro and macro-histories, seeks to explore how Block Island was truly a place apart from the homogeneous postwar American culture of the mainland.

Dr. Benjamin Hruska is the Collections Administrator of the Block Island Historical Society located on Block Island, Rhode Island. Before this, he served as an AP history instructor for six years at Basis Charter Schools in Arizona and in Shenzhen, China. He completed his PhD in Public History at Arizona State University in 2012 and his dissertation focused on the actions of self-commemoration by U.S. Navy veterans in World War II. After earning his PhD, he served as the court historian for the Department of Defense’s U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces in Washington, D.C. His latest book, Valor and Courage: The Story of the USS Block Island Escort Carriers in World War II, was published in 2021 by the University of Alabama Press.

Date

Jul 11 2023
Expired!

Time

7:00 pm - 8:00 pm

Location

Block Island Maritime Institute
216 Ocean Avenue, Block Island, RI 02807
Category