Fall of North America's Ancient Cities & Rise of a More Egalitarian Order

A millennium ago, all across North America, there were centralized civilizations with powerful leaders and large cities that rivaled urban centers around the world. Then, following a period of instability, smaller Native nations emerged, moving away from urbanization. They built more sustainable economies and more egalitarian political structures. Europeans saw these Native nations as primitive, but in fact they were highly advanced consensus democracies that served their people better than the centralized civilizations had.

The Tracy W. and Katherine W. McGregor Distinguished Lecture in American History was endowed by the McGregor Fund, established in 1925 by Detroit philanthropists Tracy McGregor and Katherine Whitney McGregor to support charitable works in their areas of interest.

Tracy W. McGregor was initially attracted to book collecting through his love of English literature, though American history eventually took precedence. In the decade before his death in 1936, McGregor formed an outstanding collection of over 5,000 rare works of Americana and 1,000 rare volumes of English literature, which he intended to donate to a deserving southern university. In 1938 the McGregor Fund selected the UVA Library as the collection’s permanent home. Since then, in addition to endowing the McGregor Lecture, the McGregor Fund has established an endowment for the Tracy W. McGregor Library, which has more than quadrupled in size; provided funding to transform the McGregor Room into the UVA community’s favorite reading room; and most recently supported the digitization of over 500 of the McGregor Library’s most significant books.

For more information, contact Camille Lipnicky, Advancement Coordinator, at [email protected].

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, 170 McCormick Road, Charlottesville, United States