Category Archives: Lecture Series

Our sister branch in St. Lawrence County told us about this free public event happening in Potsdam. Learn more about the St. Lawrence AAUW branch by clicking here. Enjoy! U.S. Army Major Dennis Sugrue will deliver the Van Sickle Endowed … Continue reading →

Media activist Ann Simonton, will speak on “Sex, Power, and the Media” on Tuesday, September 21st at 12:30 p.m. The lecture is free and open to the public. Once a top fashion model, Ann Simonton will talk about the disturbing consequences … Continue reading →

The number of casualties from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan mounts every day. And Americans will soon be forced to come to terms with the tens of thousands of men and women permanently disabled from these conflicts. This will be one of the important political and social issues of our times.
At the moment, most people accept that the proper response to wounded soldiers is to encourage them to undertake extended hospital stays, undergo extensive physical rehabilitation, and when needed make use of state-of-the-art prostheses. This response seeks to help injured soldiers make a swift return to normal civilian life.
Today supervised long-term medical care is a standard part of the U.S. veteran welfare system. This was not always the case. In fact, the idea of rehabilitating maimed soldiers arose during the First World War, a peculiar moment in our nation’s history.
It is on this theme that our invited speaker, University of Pennsylvania historian Beth Linker, will be speaking. The title of Professor Linker’s lecture is War’s Waste: The Rehabilitation of Disabled Soldiers in American History. In her lecture, Professor Linker will describe how the notion of rehabilitation eventually supplanted life-long pensions for veterans. She will explain what that means in terms of the present. Continue reading →