Lyceum Lunch w/ Dr. Todd Arrington "The Last Lincoln Republican: Garfield and the Election of 1880

Name: Lyceum Lunch w/ Dr. Todd Arrington "The Last Lincoln Republican: Garfield and the Election of 1880
Start: 2026-03-19T12:00:00-04:00
End: 2026-03-19T13:00:00-04:00
Location: 24 West State Street, Athens, OH, United States, Ohio 45701

Schedule

Thu Mar 19 2026 at 12:00 pm to 01:00 pm

UTC-04:00

Location

24 West State Street, Athens, OH, United States, Ohio 45701 | Athens, OH

The Southeast Ohio History Center welcomes Dr. Todd Arrington with his presentation “The Last Lincoln Republican: James A Garfield and the 1880 Presidential Election” for our March 2026 Lyceum Lunch.
James A. Garfield was a longtime Congressman and a U.S. Senator-elect from Ohio when he attended the 1880 Republican National Convention. His job there: to nominate fellow Ohioan John Sherman, sitting Secretary of the Treasury, to be the Republican Party’s presidential nominee. But when the smoke cleared, Garfield, not Sherman, was the nominee. Over the next five months, Garfield ran the nation’s first-ever front porch presidential campaign from his home in Mentor, Ohio. On November 2, 1880, he won the closest popular vote victory in American history to become the nation’s twentieth president. This presentation will detail Garfield’s selection as a “dark horse” presidential nominee, the 1880 presidential campaign, and why, despite being a compromise choice, James A. Garfield was exactly who the Republican Party needed in 1880.
Todd Arrington is a longtime public historian. His 25 years in the National Park Service took him to positions in seven different sites in four states and included 15 years at James A. Garfield National Historic Site in Mentor, Ohio. He was also the National Archives and Records Administration’s Director of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum in Kansas. He holds a Ph.D. in history from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. In 2020, the University Press of Kansas published his book The Last Lincoln Republican: The 1880 Presidential Election. He grew up in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania and served in the United States Army. Find him on Bluesky at @btarrington.bsky.social.