History Librarian and CML Director George D. Oberle III offers compelling parallels to modern controversies in around public knowledge in a new book, Creating an Informed Citizenry: Knowledge and Democracy in the Early American Republic. As Oberle emphasized in a talk this week at Fenwick Library, “not everything offered as knowledge is valid.” His book emphasizes moments from the Enlightenment through the Early Republic when real scientific breakthroughs existed alongside dubious or speculative claims.
Who, early elites debated, could be entrusted to validate information from mixed sources and govern its influence on a newly formed citizenry? With a focus on institutions of learning, Oberle traces how knowledge formed, circulated, and reached the electorate. He describes George Washington's stymied quest for a centralized national university and subsequent political drift away from the notion a highly educated populace and toward the elevation of expertise, as embodied in the Smithsonian Institution.
Exploring debates between Federalists and Jeffersonians, Oberle's talk narrated how freedom of inquiry and limits on information have often operated simultaneously, and why "critical judgment, not just access, is what creates an informed public." The discussion raised timely questions about shared sources of information, institutional authority, and who has historically been excluded from consensus‑building.
A lively Q&A followed, before the event concluded with a book signing. The conversation was moderated by Mark Boonshoft, Associate Professor and the Conrad M. Hall ’65 Chair in American Constitutional History at the Virginia Military Institute.
March 20, 2026