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Category: "Medicine, Science and Technology"

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Showing 1 - 12 of 12  

Earth in the Crucible: Sustainability as Value, Fact, and Experience

Matthew C. Ally, New York
These days, the word "sustainable" is tacked on to nearly everything: sustainable food, sustainable energy, sustainable growth, and more. But a concept that means everything to everyone is at risk of meaning nothing to anyone. So, what do we mean when we use the term "sustainability"?

Dying for Beauty: American Women's Quest for Acceptance

Harriet Davis-Kram, New York
In the mid and late nineteenth century, American women often brewed cosmetics in their kitchens, using ingredients from their pantries, gardens and sometimes from their local pharmacists. Results often had serious medical consequences.

Frankenstein Lives! The Continuing Relevance of Mary Shelley’s Novel

Timothy J. Madigan, Rochester
Although written almost 200 years ago, Mary Shelley 's "Frankenstein" remains relevant today. The story of a man obsessed with creating artificial life, it eerily echoes today’s discussions on fetal tissue research, life-extension, robots, and human cloning.

From Muscles to Motors on the Farm: Henry Ford and the Great American Tractor Wars, 1910-1930

Milton C. Sernett, Cazenovia
Henry Ford's Fordson Tractor, like his Model T, was both a technological marvel and an instrument of social change; this illustrated lecture will invoke memories of life and work on American family farms before the age of agribusiness.

Antonio Meucci, True Inventor of the Telephone

Tony De Nonno, Brooklyn
Antonio Meucci (1808-1889), an Italian immigrant to New York, has been denied his rightful place in history as the true inventor of the telephone.

The Radium Dial Painters: How a Local Tragedy Changed the Nation

Eugene J. Boesch, Mahopac
In 1920, young women employed as watch dial painters by U.S. Radium in Orange, New Jersey, began reporting health problems. By 1922, some were dying. But despite the fact that these women were working unprotected with a radioactive material, U.S. Radium rejected any claims that it was responsible. How did the tragedy of the "radium girls" became one of the nation's first recognized cases of industrial poisoning, and contribute to the movement to protect worker health?

Alluring Androids and Robots in Film, Photography and Art

Julie Wosk, Throggs Neck
The Stepford Wives, Lara Croft, and the advent of ultra-realistic female robots are among the many images that reveal our fascination with artificial women who seem alive.

Gutenberg and the Invention of Print: Revolution or Evolution?

Thomas G. Olsen, New Paltz
What exactly did Johannes Gutenberg give the world? Was the invention of print a true revolution or not?

Kings of Capital and Knights of Labor: A History of Work and Industry in New York

J. Ward Regan, New York
The union movement arose as a response to changing work conditions, brought on by industrialization from the 1830s to the 20th century. No American city was as central to the creation of this new social order than New York.

The Amazing Nineteenth Century: A Century of Innovation

J. Ward Regan, New York
This talk focuses on the development of specific innovations in the nineteenth century and examines how they formed the core of the industrial transformation of American society. The different subjects covered link the material transformation of the world with new ideas about society and government.

Feet, Hooves, and Rails: Transportation in Nineteenth Century America

J. Ward Regan, New York
This lecture follows the development of transportation technology from the pre-industrial period to the combustion engine in the early twentieth century. The Transportation Revolution, as it is sometimes called, encompassed a wide range of successes and failures. Accordingly, the talk examines the multiplicity of changes wrought in America's transportation infrastructure.

Life Speeds Up: Robert Fulton and a Changing New York

Robert W. Arnold III, Albany
When Robert Fulton docked his steamboat in Albany in 1807, he hadn't made just a voyage; he'd made history. The advent of steam-driven machinery meant that people need no longer rely solely on "natural" forces - muscle, wind, and water - to power their lives.

Showing 1 - 12 of 12