BETHEL — A wide variety of topics are to be discussed during the 2011 Bethel Historical Society Lecture Series.

Providing the first lecture at 2 p.m. Saturday, April 16, will be Benjamin Harris, PhD, professor of psychology at the University of New Hampshire, who will speak on “Dr. John George Gehring and His Bethel Clinic.”

The lecturer at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, May 19, will be Jane E. Radcliffe, art historian and museum collections specialist, who will make a presentation on “Folk Art Murals of the Rufus Porter School: New England Landscapes 1825-1845.”

Radcliffe is co-author of a new book on this subject and will sign copies after her illustrated talk.

The third lecture will take place at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, June 16, and will feature Andrew DeRoche, PhD, lecturer in American history at the University of Colorado, Boulder, who will present “From Bethel to Norway via the Congo: Margaret Joy Tibbetts and U.S. Foreign Relations 1949-1964.”

The Hall Memorial Lecture, at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Aug. 12, will be given by Thomas A. Desjardin, PhD, historian, Maine Bureau of Parks and Lands, who will speak on “Reluctant Warriors: Mainers React to the Outbreak of the Civil War.” This year marks the beginning of the sesquicentennial of the “War Between the States.”

The series will conclude with a Stanley Russell Howe Lecture at 2 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 15. In honor of the 100th anniversary of the “Weeks Act,” which allowed the establishment of the White Mountain National Forest, Richard W. Judd, PhD, Col. James C. McBride Professor of History at the University of Maine, will discuss “Environmental Legacies: Land-Clearing, Forest Use and Conservation in Northern New England, 1820-1920.”

All lectures in the series are free and open to all. All will be held in the exhibit hall of the Dr. Moses Mason House, 14 Broad St. For more  information, visit the society’s website at www.bethelhistorical.org.

For more information on the society, contact 824-2908, 800-824-2910 or info@bethelhistorical.org.

Copy the Story Link