A Hotel goes to Peace, Not War. The International Monetary Conference at Bretton Woods

This event is part of the Museum’s free Summer 2019 Speaker Series, which will accompany our exhibition “The Grand Hotels of the White Mountains,” on view May 17-September 12, 2019. 

Join us for this special presentation by Carl Lindblade, an amateur White Mountain Historian who serves as the official IMF story teller for the Omni Mt. Washington.

The Mount Washington Hotel had been shuttered for 3 years during the WW II but with a combination of politics and luck was selected as the site for this Conference which created both the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, financial entities that were largely responsible for rebuilding Europe after World War II.  700 Delegates from 44 Nations arrived war- weary as the Conference convened just 3 weeks after D-Day but which had been envisioned by FDR and Churchill in August of 1941. “Bretton Woods”, even today is in the news almost every month. Oh – and the chief US negotiator was a Russian Spy.

Carl Lindblade, a well known White Mountain Hotelier and Tourism Faculty Member at both UNH and Plymouth, has an interest in the role that Hotels play in our History. He’s considered a lively presenter on White Mountain and New Hampshire History done with wisdom and occasional wit. Indeed, he taught a course at Plymouth “Topics in New Hampshire’s Tourism History.”