Lake Geneva Humanities Festival 2026

The opening night belongs to Richard Munson and his book Ingenious: A Biography of Benjamin Franklin, Scientist.

Most of us learned the Franklin checklist in school: printer, inventor, diplomat, Founding Father, kite. Munson spends more time on the scientist.

His book follows Franklin’s work with electricity, heat, ocean currents, weather and other scientific questions, then connects that work to the public life that made him one of the best-known Americans of his time.

Munson has also written Tesla: Inventor of the Modern and Tech to Table: 25 Innovators Reimagining Food, along with books on energy policy and other innovators.

The setting makes this one especially good for Lake Geneva. The Lake Geneva Public Library sits directly above the lake in Library Park. The prairie-style building was designed by James R. Dresser, a Frank Lloyd Wright protégé. You can arrive a little early, walk the lakefront, then be inside for the 6:30 program.

RSVP for Richard Munson

Friday changes gears.

County Highway is an independent American newspaper printed as a 20-page broadsheet and published 6 times a year. The Lake Geneva program brings its writers and editors into a conversation about the publication and the kind of long-form reporting and essays it publishes.

There is a second thread to the night. For the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, County Highway has assembled 250 Great American Things, published by Hard Cider Press in July 2026. The project collects short pieces about American people, objects, places and ideas.

The festival’s current program page names founding editors David Samuels and Walter Kirn as presenters and discusses co-editors David Samuels and Ryan Baesemann in connection with 250 Great American Things.

Kirn is the novelist and essayist behind Up in the Air and Thumbsucker. Up in the Air later became the 2009 film starring George Clooney.

This should be the most conversational night of the 4-day schedule. The subject is bigger than newspapers. It gets into what people choose to write about America in 2026, what deserves saving on paper and why an independent print publication is still making a go of it.

RSVP for County Highway

Saturday night is music. Mezzo-soprano Louisa Waycott joins Lake Geneva musician Tom Stanfield for a program built around the Great American Songbook.

That means the American standards that came out of Broadway, Hollywood musicals and popular songwriting during the first half of the 20th century.

Waycott has performed opera and concert work in the United States and Europe and has sung for multiple seasons with Washington National Opera. Her background also includes piano, cello and musical theater.

Stanfield is much closer to home. Lake Geneva regulars know him from performances around the area, including The Abbey Resort, Baker House and Niche Café & Wine Bar. He accompanies Waycott for the Saturday program.

The Church of the Holy Communion is used again Friday and Saturday. The historic sanctuary dates to 1880, and the festival chose it in part for a room that works well for both spoken programs and music.

RSVP for Louisa Waycott

Sunday might be the program with the strongest Lake Geneva connection even though the building under discussion is 80 miles away.

Robert Sharoff’s The Wrigley Building: The Making of an Icon looks at the design, construction and history of the white terra-cotta landmark at the head of Chicago’s Michigan Avenue.

Sharoff is joined by architectural photographer William Zbaren and Chicago cultural historian Tim Samuelson.

Zbaren’s architectural photography has appeared in publications including The New York Times, Architectural Record and The Wall Street Journal. Samuelson spent decades documenting Chicago architecture and served as the city’s first official cultural historian.

And then there is the name on the building. William Wrigley Jr. is woven into Lake Geneva history through the Wrigley family’s long association with Geneva Lake. Holding this conversation inside the Riviera on Wrigley Drive gives the Sunday program a local echo that would disappear in a hotel ballroom somewhere else.

The Riviera itself is part of the afternoon. It sits over the lakefront with Geneva Lake on 3 sides and broad views through the ballroom windows.

RSVP for the Wrigley Building program