Far Hills Speaker Series

Register to Attend Virtually

Join the Oakwood Historical Society and Wright Memorial Public Library for entertainment and education with local history presentations on Oakwood, Ohio and the Dayton area. Whether you are a history buff or just interested in learning more about the place you live, the Far Hills Speaker Series has engaging stories for everyone.

Fall 2026 Programs:

September 20: Murder, Madness, & Mayhem: Ohio Women Committed to Insane Asylums (1880-1940) presented by Dr. Karen Bartley

Based on the dissertation Out of Mind, Out of Sight: Ohio Women Committed to Insane Asylums, 1880-1940, Dr. Bartley examines the ways in which charges against women often declared “insane” reflected what was expected of “normal” women – the results are a bit startling! About the presenter: Bartley received her PhD from Kent State University before teaching at various universities in Northeast Ohio and retiring from the University of Dayton in 2020.  Her focus was on world and US history, specializing in US women’s history post-Civil War, with research focused on social expectations for women. 

October 18: The Early Years of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize presented by Sharon Rab

Through anecdotes and stories, Sharon Rab will recount the background of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize from its inception through its early years. About the presenter: Rab founded the Dayton Literary Peace Prize in 2006 to honor writers whose work promotes peace and global understanding. She has lived in Oakwood for almost 50 years and is an award-winning educator whose career teaching English at Kettering Fairmont and Miami University in Oxford spanned five decades. A writer herself, she produced and hosted the television show Writer 2 Writer, interviewing hundreds of authors around the world. Sharon was the education director of the Muse Machine, has served on numerous boards locally, state-wide, and nationally, and currently serves as a member of the Wright State University Foundation Board of Trustees.

November 15: Hidden in Plain Sight: The WAVES who helped with the war and why Dayton mattered presented by Lucinda Davies

The WAVES - Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service - emerged from military necessity in 1942 and evolved into a transformative force within the U.S. Navy. This talk explores how women were recruited and trained for roles ranging from administrative and technical work to the classified intelligence and cryptanalysis that shaped Allied operations. Discover why Dayton, Ohio became a crucial node in this larger story, and how six hundred women performed irreplaceable work while operating under layers of official secrecy. You'll gain insight into the scale and significance of women's wartime service, the psychological weight of silence, and what it means to be vital to the war effort while remaining officially unseen. About the presenter: Davies is a researcher and writer based in the Dayton area, specializing in women whose wartime service proved essential yet remains largely absent from popular history. Her research focuses on the WAVES and the broader intelligence and manufacturing infrastructure that powered American cryptanalysis during World War II - the visible and invisible labor that made technological breakthroughs possible.