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"Convention plans begin to finalize"


By Jack Bales (PF-258)
Convention Host

Plans for “The Fredericksburg Fourth” have shaped up nicely, and there is a tentative schedule for this year’s annual convention. As I mentioned before, the dinner for Friday, May 3, will be at Hope Heroes Southern Kitchen, just a few miles from our hotel, the Hampton Inn. I met with owners Trent and Dee Dee Stinson in early January and enjoyed talking with them as well as with a couple of the employees. Lexis, a server, stopped by my table to chat for a bit, for example, and she—and others—are enthusiastic about the purpose of Hope Heroes. “HOPE” stands for “Helping Other People Eat,” and the restaurant donates three to five percent of its profits to “Hub of Hope,” a nonprofit organization that provides meals for individuals and families in the Fredericksburg area in need of food. In fact, according to its web page, “As of January 2023, they have served more than 200,000 meals to children, families, veterans, and seniors.”

While there, I chose quite a few items from the menu and had a superb lunch. I also made a donation to “Hub of Hope,” and as I walked out I felt that this was an excellent place to have our Friday evening meal.

As I have detailed in quite a few pre-convention articles over the past few years, Fredericksburg is home to numerous historic homes and buildings. One of my favorites is Chatham Manor. Located in Stafford County and overlooking the Rappahannock River and the city of Fredericksburg, Chatham was a colonial plantation and is the only private home in America that hosted both George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. It served as a Union headquarters and hospital during the Civil War; in fact, present-day visitors looking across the river can see buildings in Fredericksburg that were present when Clara Barton and Walt Whitman attended to wounded soldiers at Chatham. Chatham is now owned by the National Park Service, and I’ve arranged for a park ranger-led tour of the property on Saturday afternoon.

Alger Society members may recall chapter 9 of Ragged Dick, “A Scene in a Third Avenue Car,” in which Dick is falsely accused of stealing a woman’s purse. From the text: “The conductor’s hand forthwith dove into Dick’s pocket, and drew out a rusty jack-knife, a battered cent, [and] about fifty cents in change.” Liane Houghtalin (PF-699), a professor of Classics at the University of Mary Washington whose area of academic expertise is ancient coins, will turn her attention to the coins of Alger’s day on Friday morning when she will discuss “Ragged Dick’s Pocket Change.” She recently emailed that the period during which Alger wrote the story is rather fascinating, “since it follows some interesting changes in currency laws that would have affected the newsboys. I will have some show-and-tell coins and at least one coin give-away from the period itself.” I am sure we’ll all enjoy Liane’s lively PowerPoint presentation. Incidentally, she will once again sponsor a drawing for convention attendees to win a gift basket of “made in Virginia” items and will have her well-stocked candy bowl on hand in the large meeting room.

Speaking of Ragged Dick, many Alger readers particularly like this volume and others that are set in the author’s New York City during the latter half of the 19th century. University of Mary Washington Associate Professor of History Will Mackintosh is a cultural and social historian of the 19th-century United States. He offers courses, among other topics, on urban history, the history of the book, and the history of capitalism. On Friday morning, he will talk about New York City during the Gilded Age of the 19th century. I have known Will for a long time, and even held a “meet and greet” for him at my home when he was running for Fredericksburg City Council (he won resoundingly). And — small world! — he received his undergraduate degree from Swarthmore College, where he was a student in one of H.A.S. President Carol Nackenoff’s classes.

Our keynote speaker is a longtime friend of mine, Mike Hill. The Library of Congress once profiled Mike for its blog and referred to him as the “hero to the historians.” The blog noted that “after nearly forty years in the business, Mr. Hill has established himself as a premier investigator.” Mike has assisted numerous well-known authors and filmmakers with their works, including David McCullough, Jon Meacham, Michael Beschloss, Evan Thomas, Senator John McCain and Ken Burns. He won an Emmy Award for his work as a co-producer on Burns’ popular television series, The Civil War. During a recent lunch, Mike told me that when McCullough was asked if there was an overriding theme in his books, the author replied that it was “overcoming adversity.” That comment has always resonated with Mike (I’m sure it would have with Horatio Alger, too!), and during a PowerPoint presentation Saturday evening, Mike will discuss “Algerian” themes in the works of David McCullough.
I’m also in the middle of organizing a panel discussion for Friday morning, and I’ll have more on this in the next preliminary report.

Besides a tentative schedule, you will find a convention registration form. I am pleased to announce that the Hampton Inn is once again offering the low room rate of just $89 per night. Meal costs have gone up a bit, but the registration fee is also the same as last year, too.

More details and a final schedule will be available sometime in March or April. I look forward to seeing old friends and new at “The Fredericksburg Fourth,” here in Fredericksburg, Virginia, from Thursday, May 2 to Sunday, May 5, 2024.