UW Faculty Members Interviewed for C

University of Wyoming faculty members were interviewed for programs that will be shown on the C-SPAN public service cable television channel beginning this month.

C-SPAN producers were in Wyoming to conduct interviews for the cable channel’s Cities Tour segment that will spotlight Cheyenne and Casper. Cities Tour Coordinating Producer Debbie Lamb says the programs cover the history, culture and literary figures in small- to mid-sized cities. Production crews visited historic sites and interviewed historians and civic leaders.

For the Casper segment, Phil Roberts, professor in the UW Department of History, was interviewed in the UW American Heritage Center (AHC) about the Teapot Dome scandal of the 1920s. Roberts explains why it happened and discusses what the scandal meant for Wyoming. The producers consulted AHC resources about Teapot Dome, including the papers of U.S. Sen. John B. Kendrick, who was in office at the time of the scandal.

For the Cheyenne feature, AHC Assistant Director Rick Ewig was interviewed for a segment on Nellie Tayloe Ross, the nation’s first woman governor, whose papers are housed in the AHC. The interview with Ewig was conducted at the historic Governor’s Mansion in Cheyenne, where Ross lived as both governor and first lady of Wyoming.

For a Book TV segment, C-SPAN Producer Tiffany Rocque interviewed Anne Marie Lane, curator of the AHC’s Toppan Rare Books Library. Lane discussed the collection that holds more than 50,000 items including books, magazines, manuscripts and other materials. Much of the interview dealt with a course Lane will teach this fall in the Department of History, titled “Book History: America, 17th through 20th Centuries.”

AHC Director Mark Greene discussed how the Toppan Library is promoted and used as a teaching tool. UW undergraduate students frequently visit the library and use the materials for their research and class projects.

The Teapot Dome Segment will air during “Casper Weekend” on American History TV (AHTV) on C-SPAN3. It will air Sunday, Aug. 17, at noon MDT. The Book TV block is scheduled Saturday, Aug. 16, at 10 a.m.

The Toppan Library and Nellie Tayloe Ross segments will air during “Cheyenne Weekend” scheduled Sept. 6-7. The literary events/nonfiction author segments can be seen Saturday, Sept. 6, at 10 a.m. on Book TV, and the history segments will air Sunday, Sept. 7, at noon on AHTV.

Check local television listings and the C-SPAN website (www.cspan.org) for program schedules.