Presented by Dr. Bill Cogar, Executive Director, Historic Naval Ships Association
Location – UNT Health Science Center, MET Building, 1000 Montgomery Street, Fort Worth, TX 76107
Dinner – 6PM Program starts at 7PM
(Dinner: Samon glazed with maple and ginger, Rice Pilaf, mixed vegetables, salad and dessert. $15 . To RSVP, respond to this email or send a text or call Jim Rosenthal at 817-307-9263)
The USS Monitor is a ship well known for changing the course of naval warfare during her one and only battle in her short life. Historians agree that the ship was revolutionary, but the real question is: Who were the key figures behind the success of the “cheesebox on a raft?” Certainly, those who commanded and fought the ship in March 1862 are recognized and celebrated. But the real genius was the ship’s designer, the Swedish engineer John Ericsson.
This talk will look at this extraordinary man and the huge challenges he faced, the setbacks he endured, and the obstacles he overcame in creating the Monitor – all at a critical time in the course of the American Civil War and in the engineering and technologies of naval warfare in the mid-19th century.
Dr. Bill Cogar received his doctorate from Oxford University and was a Professor of Naval History at Annapolis from 1983 to 1998. He was instrumental in transforming and modernizing the Naval Museum at the Academy. He went on to head several other museums including The Mariner’s Museum in Newport News, Virginia (the current home of the Monitor) retiring in 2011. He now heads the Historic Naval Ships Association. Bill is widely recognized as one of the top naval historians and the expert on this fascinating story of Ericsson and the Monitor. Don’t miss this program! See you on the 13th!