1940s

1940 February

Dr. Jensen
Psychometrics Clinic, University of Minnesota Hospital

Lecture: "Mental Hygiene and Marriage"

1940 April

Music Festival

Festival: The two-day 1940 Music Festival featured solos, bands, and choruses from seventeen and included a parade of bands to start the event

1940 May

Dr. T. Z. Koo
internationally-known pacifist; vice-president of the World Student Christian Federation (will become national director of the YMCA in China after WWII)

Lectures: "Far East Situations," Koo received a big hand from students after giving two lectures on the far east situation, focusing on Chinese and Japanese relations

1941 September

The Bob-O-Links
family musical trio

Performance: The Convocation program featured a musical trio, The Bob-o-Links.  The trio is a family affair; father and two sons with the mother doing the coaching.

1941 March

Graff Ballet
dance group

Performance: The assembly program featured America's outstanding dance attraction, The Graff Ballet.  This involved dance movements as well as singing.  The students really enjoyed the "Garden Party," a satire on the boredom of a mythical King and Queen and their social duties.

1941 April

Mavis Hoversten
promotional and publicity manager, Associated Collegiate Press, former editor of the Minnesota Daily

Speaker:  Hoversten was the main speaker at the banquet celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Student Voice

1942 July 12

Russian Cathedral Quartet
Singing quartet composed of members of the Russian Cathedral Choir of New York City

Concert: The Quartet appeared in the College auditorium. They had received high praise throughout the country wherever they performed and had broadcast over the NBC network for over two years. Stefan Kozakevich of the Chicago Opera Company directed the ensemble.

1944 November 14

Merlin S. Hull
Progressive Congressman from Jackson County, Wisconsin

   Photo from the Library of Congress      

Speaker: "My Impressions of Congress" was one in a series of programs sponsored by the Citizens Council of River Falls

1944 December

Raymond Koch, baritone,
and
Helen Bickerton, soprano

Concert: Raymond Koch, one of America's outstanding baritones, was joined by soprano Helen Bickerton [sponsored by the Assembly Committee, Faculty, and the Women's Club]

1945 January

George Grim
columnist, foreign correspondent, and radio and television personality, best known for the "I Like It Here" and "Santa Anonymous" columns for the Minneapolis Tribune

Speaker: Mr. Grim spoke to students and faculty in the college auditorium on his recent work in China

1945 April

Maurice Terry
director of the Wisconsin Region of the National Conference Christians and Jews

Lecture: "Education in One World" [sponsored by the Assembly Committee]

1946 January

Manoah Leide-Tedesco
writer, lecturer, and well-known composer and violinist

Lecture: Manoah Leide-Tedesco spoke at River Falls State Teachers College regarding Latin-American affairs and the various cultures south of the United States

1946 October 23

Wayne W. Adams
an American farmer who served as an agricultural specialist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture

Lecture: Adams spoke on campus in the auditorium regarding "Agriculture Reconstruction and Rehabilitation in European Countries"

1946 November 12

John Gurney
bass-baritone with the Metropolitan Opera

Performance: "His style and method of expressing the emotional feeling in a song was extremely rare and satisfying to the listener" [Lyceum Series]

1946 December 6

Marti and Nilsson
Samuel Marti, Mexican violinist
Gunhild Nilsson, American pianist

          Photo from the Student Voice

Joint Concert [sponsored by the Assembly Committee]

1947 February 21

Peter Freuchen
Danish explorer, author, journalist, and anthropologist

Lecture: Freuchen spent many years in Thule, Greenland, living with the Polar Inuit and "centered his talk around the Indians and the natives of Greenland and the Arctic and he related many incidents in his personal contact with them" [Lyceum Series]

1947 October

Dr. Štefan Osuský
Czechoslovakian diplomat, minister to France for 20 years, secretary general of the Czechoslovakian delegation to the 1919 Paris Peace Conference

Lecture: Osuský asked the question "Is Peace Between The United States and the Soviet Union Possible?" 

1948 April

Martin Hall
world traveler, educator, lecturer, author

Lecture: Hall spoke in the college auditorium about problems in Europe; "An anti-Hitler German and veteran of the German underground, Hall escaped the Nazis in 1936 and came to America where he became an American citizen"

1948 October

Dr. Gilbert Brighouse
chair of the Department of Psychology at Occidental College

Lecture: "The Quest for Maturity" Questioning the maturity of nations and asking questions such as, "How do Americans think?" "Are we really grown up?" "As a nation, are we socially and intellectually mature?"

1949 January

Howard Pierce Davis
lecturer

Lecture: "Freedom, Democracy; Stability; these are the values now in jeopardy. Davis has seen these values vanish [in Nazi Germany] and he has some clear convictions as to how they may be salvaged and extended to wider areas of space and time"

1949 March

Dr. Robert Hartman
professor at Ohio State University

Lecture: "America's Economic Formula for the Future"

1949 October

Dr. Subodh Chandra Roy
lawyer, Hindu philosopher

Lecture: "India on the Threshold of Democracy" After becoming blind at age 7, he devoted many years of his life to improve educational opportunities for the many sightless in India