Episode 1: Exploring 18th Century Ohio Country
March 20, 2025
During the first Ohio & The Revolution Webinar Todd Kleismit, America 250-Ohio executive director and panelists discussed what the Ohio Country looked like in the 18th Century.
Discussion points included:
- How the indigenous people stewarded the land
- Mound building cultures
- Flora and fauna of the era
- Relations with Europeans and the American Indians who had lived in the land for thousands of years.
Panelists: Chief Glenna Wallace, Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma; Dr. Mary Stockwell, historian and author; Logan York, Tribal Historic Preservation Office for the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma; and Madison Bastress. Ph.D. candidate at New York University.
Save the Date
Future Ohio & Revolution Sessions and Topics
All sessions will be 7:00 p.m. – 8:15 p.m.
May 15, 2025
The People in the Ohio Country
August 21, 2025
French and Indian War and Other Conflicts in the Ohio Country
November 13, 2025
The Revolution Begins
More dates for 2026 to come!
March 20, 2025 Panelists
Chief Glenna J. Wallace, EdS, MA, BA
Glenna Wallace is chief of the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma in Ottawa County, Oklahoma — one of three federally recognized Shawnee tribes. Since 2006, Chief Wallace has served as the tribe’s first-ever female chief. She works with federal, tribal, state, community and individual entities, consistently emphasizing education, historical preservation, rebirth of cultural awareness and economic security. She worked in the Eastern Shawnee Business Committee for 18 years prior to her tenure as chief.
Chief Wallace also worked at Crowder College in Neosho, Missouri, for more than 38 years as an instructor, department chair, division chair, director of travel and interim academic dean. She taught more than 25,000 students and traveled to more than 70 countries.
Chief Wallace has served on the Kansas City University Board of Trustees, Seneca R-VII Board of Education, Seneca Public Schools Foundation Board and People’s Bank Board of Seneca in Seneca, Missouri. She also served on the Claremore Indian Hospital Board of Trustees, Pittsburg State University Foundation Board of Trustees, UNESCO World Heritage Steering Committee, Indiana University’s First Nations Leadership Ambassadors Council and the Inter-Tribal Council.
Chief Wallace earned Bachelor of Arts, Master of Arts and Education Specialist degrees from Pittsburg State University, and she continued post-graduate studies via The University of Tulsa, University of Arkansas and Southwest Missouri State University (presently known as Missouri State University).
Mary Stockwell, Ph.D.
Dr. Mary Stockwell received her Ph.D. in history from the University of Toledo and was a professor of history and department chair at Lourdes University. She has been a research fellow at the New York Public Library and the William L. Clements Library at the University of Michigan. Since her early retirement from her academic career, she has become a full-time writer. She is the author of Unlikely General: “Mad” Anthony Wayne and the Battle for America (Yale University Press, 2018); Interrupted Odyssey: Ulysses S. Grant and the American Indians (Southern Illinois University Press, 2018); The Other Trail of Tears: The Removal of the Ohio Indians (Westholme, 2015); Woodrow Wilson: The Last Romantic (Nova Press, 2008); and history books for students including The Ohio Adventure (Gibbs-Smith, 2001); A Journey through Maine (Gibbs-Smith, 2007); the prize-winning, Massachusetts: Our Home (Gibbs-Smith, 2005); and The American Story: Perspectives and Encounters to 1865 (Bridgepoint, 2012). Her latest publications include “Reflections on Settler Colonialism” (Middle West Review, Fall 2024); “Tippecanoe: An American Epic,” a look at Harrison’s 1840 campaign as an epic retelling of his battle against Tecumseh, in Where East Meets (Mid)West: Exploring a Regional Divide (Kent State University Press, 2025); and “Edith Wilson: My Memoir,” in In Her Own Voice: How First Ladies Use Autobiography to Tell Their Own Stories (University Press of Kansas, 2025).
Logan York
Logan York is the Tribal Historic Preservation Officer for the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma and a citizen of the Tribe. He has a bachelor’s degree in Anthropology from Miami University with minors in History and Archaeology. Logan serves as a representative on the Ohio Historic Preservation Advisory Board and over a dozen other boards and leadership teams. Logan came to work for the Tribe in April of 2022 after previously working for Rebecca Hawkins, the consulting archaeologist for the Miami Tribe. As THPO, he is part of the Cultural Resources Office team in the Miami Tribes ancestral homeland.
Madison Bastress
Madison Bastress is a non-Native doctoral candidate in the History Department at New York University. She is currently a visiting scholar at the Myaamia Center, an initiative directed by the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma in partnership with Miami University. Her research examines Myaamia ecological knowledges and place-based political strategies in the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Great Lakes and Ohio River Valley.
Todd Kleismit
Todd Kleismit was appointed as the executive director of the Ohio Commission for the U.S. Semiquincentennial on March 1, 2022. Since that time he has been working alongside a new 29-member Commission on building a statewide initiative to prepare Ohio to participate in the nation’s 250th anniversary. Todd previously served for 18 years as the Ohio History Connection’s director of community and government relations. A native of Dayton, Ohio, Todd is a U.S. Army veteran of Operation Desert Storm and has a wide range of experience working in the public, nonprofit and private sectors.