PULLMAN, Wash. The 15th annual Freedom Philosophy Lecture, entitled “Character and Entrepreneurship,” will be presented by economic historian Burton W. Folsom Jr. at 7:30 p.m., Wednesday, March 26, in Todd Hall 133 on the Washington State University campus.
Folsom is the historian-in-residence at the Center for the American Idea, in Houston, Texas. His visit to WSU is his third, having presented the lecture in 1996 and in 1998. He was then a senior fellow at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a nonpartisan, free market think tank based in Midland, Mich.
Folsom earned his Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh, his master’s degree from the University of Nebraska, and his bachelor’s from Indiana University. He has taught history at universities for more than 20 years, and is an author of several books and articles. His books include “Urban Capitalists: Entrepreneurs and City Growth in Pennsylvania’s Lackawanna and Lehigh Regions,” “The Myth of the Robber Barons: A New Look at the Rise of Big Business in America 1840-1920,” and “The Spirit of Freedom: Essays in American History.”
Speakers in the lecture series typically embrace the Freedom Philosophy that promotes “maximum individual liberty and responsibility, limited governments and the free enterprise system.”
Sponsors of the lecture series are the late Geoff and Florence Maughmer, proponents of Freedom Philosophy. Geoff Maughmer was a WSU alumnus. Through the lecture series, they hoped to broaden the knowledge of, stimulate interest in, and encourage study and discussion of the Freedom Philosophy.
For more information on this year’s lecture or Freedom Philosophy, contact Rom Markin, interim dean of WSU Spokane and marketing professor, who holds the Maugher Freedom Philosophy Professorship in the College of Business and Economics. He can be contacted at markin@wsu.edu.
