Age Group:
AdultsProgram Description
Event Details
This event is co-sponsored with York Ready for Climate Action and The York Land Trust.
David Moore and Dudley Dudley will be sharing the fascinating story of how three women led the fight to save Durham, NH and the New England seacoast from environmental devastation. This story has been told in David Moore's book, "SMALL TOWN, BIG OIL." Dudley Dudley was one of three incredible women involved in this fight for the Seacoast.
As part of this program, York Ready for Climate Action and The York Land Trust will be sharing information on their environmental and climate advocacy efforts.
After the program, The Booktenders of York Maine will be in attendance to sell books and David Moore and Dudley Dudley will stay to sign books.
About the Book
In the fall of 1973, the oil shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, arguably the richest man in the world, proposed to build the largest oil refinery in the world, in Durham, NH, processing 400,000 barrels of oil every day. The project was vigorously supported by the governor, Meldrim Thomson, and by William Loeb, the notorious publisher of the only statewide newspaper, the Manchester Union Leader. Oil would have been off loaded at the Isles of Shoals, pumped underwater to Rye, overland across Pease Air Force Base, under Great Bay, and overland to the refinery on Durham Point. Oil spills alone would have devastated the New England fishing industry.
This is the story of how three women – Nancy Sandberg, the town leader who founded Save Our Shores; Dudley Dudley, the first-term rep who took the fight to the state legislature; and Phyllis Bennett, publisher of the local newspaper that alerted the public to Onassis’s secret acquisition of the land – fought against big oil. They led the residents of Durham to out-organize, out-wit, and out-maneuver the governor, the media, and the Onassis cartel to hand the powerful Greek billionaire the most humiliating defeat of his business career, and spare the New England seacoast from becoming an industrial wasteland.
About the Presenters:
Author David Moore is a Senior Fellow with the University of New Hampshire Carsey School of Public Policy and a two-time EPPY (Editors & Publishers) Award winning writer for iMediaEthics.org.
Prior to joining Carsey, he was senior editor of the Gallup Poll, where he worked for thirteen years. Before that, he was a professor of political science at the University of New Hampshire for twenty-one years, where he founded and directed the UNH Survey Center.
He is author of Small Town, Big Oil: The Untold Story of the Women Who Took on the Richest Man in the World – and Won (Diversion Books, 2017). He is also co-author with Andrew Smith of The First Primary: New Hampshire’s Outsize Role in Presidential Nominations (University Press of New England, 2016); and author of The Opinion Makers(Beacon Press, 2008; trade paperback edition, 2009); How to Steal An Election (Nation Books, 2006); and The Super Pollsters (Four Walls Eight Windows, 1992; trade paperback edition, 1995).
He has published scores of articles about public opinion, survey methodology, and American and international politics in scholarly journals, newspapers, books, magazines, and online publications.
He received his master's and doctorate degrees in political science at The Ohio State University and his bachelor's degree at the United States Military Academy. While at UNH, he served terms as chair of the Department of Political Science and interim chair of the Institute for Policy and Social Science Research.
Dudley Dudley was born Dudley Webster in Exeter, NH, and was raised in the nearby town of Durham, NH where she has lived most of her life. She graduated from UNH in 1959. When she married Portsmouth attorney Thomas Minot Dudley, taking his last name of Dudley, her name became both a political asset and the source of humor throughout her career. Dudley and her husband were married for 57 years and had two daughters, Morgan and Rebecca, whom they raised in Durham.
Dudley was elected to the New Hampshire House of Representatives in 1972 and reelected in 1974. She was the Sponsor of Home Rule legislation that defeated Onassis' oil refinery proposal. She was then elected to the New Hampshire Governor's Council in 1974 and reelected for three more terms. At that time she was the first woman to serve in an office higher than Legislature, making her the highest politically ranked woman in the state.
She served as Executive Director of WiLL - Women Legislators' Lobby and also as the District Director for New Hampshire Congresswomen Carol Shea Porter.
About York Ready for Climate Action
YRCA was formed in May of 2018 by a group of York citizens, frustrated by lack of progress on climate, under the name York Ready for 100%. York Eco Homes and Waste Reduction and Diversion (WRAD) became part of the effort. In 2022, under the name York Ready for Climate Action, they became a 501(c)3 nonprofit.
They are a group of passionate volunteers from around the York community, dedicated to increasing awareness about climate change and making urgent reductions in emissions for the benefit of our community and our planet!
About The York Land Trust
York Land Trust is a nonprofit organization that protects and cares for significant natural lands and waterways in the greater York Maine area for the benefit of the community and the environment.
The York Land Trust envisions a community that values the need for a healthy, natural environment to ensure the social, economic and overall well-being of its citizens. A broad diversity of permanently protected landscapes, waterways, wildlife and natural resources that define our community’s unique character will complement the built environment. The public will be engaged in relationships with the land that are mutually beneficial.
