Biography

Dr. Christopher N. Breiseth is a historian and a former non-profit executive and college president. Born in Minneapolis in 1936, Chris grew up in a civically-minded family against the backdrop of World War II. His family moved to Los Angeles when he was 13, where he was active in student government at his high school and then attended UCLA. He worked on Adlai Stevenson’s campaigns in 1952 and 1956 and traveled to India as part of the Project India initiative in 1957, before deciding to pursue his doctorate in European History at Cornell University. As a graduate student at Cornell, he lived at Telluride House, where several notable guests, including Frances Perkins, Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Secretary of Labor, lived with the students. Telluride was also the place where he met his wife of 48 years, Jane.

After completing a Master’s degree in British History at Oxford University in 1962 and completing his Cornell PhD in 1964, he began his teaching career at Williams College in 1963. After a leave of absence from Williams to work in Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty at the Office of Economic Opportunity in Washington, D.C. in 1967-8, he reconfigured his professional interests to focus on American racial history. He further deepened his studies of race through a Danforth Post Doctoral Fellowship in Black Studies with John Hope Franklin at the University of Chicago. Dr. Franklin recommended him as a faculty member for the new Sangamon State University campus in Springfield, Illinois — Land of Lincoln. Steeped in Lincoln's legacy, Chris continued to develop his interest in presidential history and race relations, becoming involved in a successful effort to desegregate Springfield schools.

Chris transitioned into higher education administration as the President of Deep Springs College in the High Sierras of California in 1980 before becoming President of Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, PA in 1984, serving for 17 years. While at Wilkes, he also chaired the Pennsylvania Council for the Humanities and the Earth Conservancy, an environmental reclamation project.

After leaving academia, Chris reignited his passion for presidential history as President of the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute in Hyde Park, NY, taking on the mantle as a steward of the New Deal legacy. He played a significant role in the National New Deal Preservation Association in Santa Fe, NM and the Frances Perkins Center in Newcastle, Maine, where he served as board chair. He and Jane moved back to Ticonderoga, Jane's hometown, three years before her death in 2012. During his retirement, he has remained an active community member in Ticonderoga as part of the Kiwanis Club, Torch Club, Ticonderoga Heritage Museum, Ticonderoga Historical Society, and activities related to Fort Ticonderoga. He also meets regularly with a group of grandchildren of New Dealers, including June Hopkins, James Roosevelt, and Scott Wallace. Tomlin Coggeshall, Frances Perkins' grandson, was part of the group until his death in 2005.