The Literary Cocktail Hour is a fun, informal monthly event featuring a pair (or more) of speakers in an entertaining, illuminating online event based on the notion of a cocktail hour.
Online and free
The Festival will host Theodore Roosevelt scholar Michael Cullinane for a virtual cocktail hour on Friday, July 10, 2026 at 5:00pm (EST). The event is FREE and open to the public.
Michael Cullinane and Tom Bedell will be in conversation discussing his new book, Theodore Roosevelt and the Tennis Cabinet which was published in May. The book recounts the history of Roosevelt’s tennis partners and the influence they had on his administration.
As one reviewer has said about the book, “What the ‘team of rivals’ was to Abraham Lincoln, the ‘Tennis Cabinet’ was to Theodore Roosevelt. Michael Cullinane brings to vivid life an unusual menagerie of confidants and compatriots who met on the court to reshape a nation.”
Michael Cullinane is a historian, an award winning author, and the Walton Chair of the Theodore Roosevelt Studies at Dickinson State University. He serves as a Public Historian for the Theodore Roosevelt Association and is a contributor to the design and curation of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library due to open in 2026.
He is an ardent believer that history illuminates the present and founded the popular podcast The Gilded Age and Progressive Era. He is an experienced speaker and regularly talks at universities, corporate events, libraries, professional associations, and other public venues.
He is a native of New Jersey, Yankees fan, and cocktail lover easily tempted with a whiskey.
