Humanities & Society

WUSTL ArchivesWashington University’s Fashion Design class of 1960Fashion today is about the new, the hip, the cool and — above all else — the young. But such was not always the case. In 1929, a student fashion show at Washington University in St. Louis changed the apparel industry forever by launching juniors’ fashion. In 1934, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, St. Louis manufacturers became the first to market juniors’ sizes, such as 5, 7 and 9. On May 2, 2004, the university’s School of Art Fashion Design Show will celebrate its 75th anniversary of bringing some of the hottest and most creative couture this side of Paris to a St. Louis runway. This year’s fully choreographed, Paris-style show will be held at Saint Louis Galleria.

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Krzysztof Wodiczko’s The St. Louis Projection, a poignant and provocative community art project about the shattering effects of violence and the healing power of public discourse, will be broadcast onto the St. Louis Public Library, 1301 Olive St., from 9 to 11 p.m., April 16, 17 and 18.

*Overcoming Apartheid*South Africans celebrate a decade of democracy this month as they observe the 10th anniverary of the April 1994 elections that brought Nelson Mandela to power and ended years of apartheid and white rule. While many expected South Africa’s transition to democracy to be filled with pain and heartbreak, a new book attributes the nation’s remarkable success to it’s steadfast faith in the power of truth to promote national healing and reconciliation. “Without the truth and reconciliation process, the prospects for a reconciled, democratic South Africa would have been greatly diminished,” concludes James L. Gibson, author of “Overcoming Apartheid: Can Truth Reconcile a Divided Nation?”

The U.S. Supreme CourtOn May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously declared that separate educational facilities are “inherently unequal” and, as such, violate the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees all citizens “equal protection under the law.” The Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education was a vitally important one. The landmark case not only opened the door for black children in the United States to attend all-white schools in their neighborhoods, but it also gave momentum to the fight toward desegregating the entire country. But an education expert at Washington University in St. Louis argues that as we approach the 50th anniversary of the decision, we still have much work ahead of us to achieve a high-quality education for all students.

Photo courtesy Library of Congress.From left, attorneys George E.C. Hayes, Thurgood Marshall and James M. Nabrit Jr. congratulate each other following the U.S. Supreme Court decision declaring segregation in public schools unconstitutional.When the U.S. Supreme Court handed down the Brown v. Board of Education ruling 50 years ago, it based its opinion on the premise that the lives of African-Americans were irreparably harmed by the stigma of segregation, leaving their lives bereft of hope and opportunity. Not all African-Americans accepted this idea, however, leading to skepticism about the Brown decision, says Tomiko Brown-Nagin, J.D., Ph.D., an associate professor in Washington University’s School of Law and in the Department of History in Arts & Sciences. “Although black ambivalence about Brown may appear to be a phenomenon of recent vintage — one connected to the ‘black pride’ movement of the late ’60s and ’70s or the multicultural movement of the early ’90s — in fact it has deep historical roots,” she says. “The historical record should be revised to correct received wisdom: the notion that African-Americans across time and place uniformly supported the campaign to integrate the schools is an historical misconception.”

“Mitts Across the Pacific: Baseball in Japan and the United States” is the topic of a panel discussion with owners of the St. Louis Cardinals and the Orix Bluewaves of Japan at 2 p.m. April 16 in the Moot Courtroom, Anheuser-Busch Hall. Free and open to the public, the forum features Bluewaves owner Yoshihiko Miyauchi; Frederick O. Hanser, vice chairman of the St. Louis Cardinals; and Timothy Hanser, vice president of community outreach, Cardinals Care. They will discuss the use of performance-enhancing drugs, the internationalization of baseball, new stadiums, salary caps, parity between teams and the future of baseball in Japan and the United States.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), car crashes are the leading cause of death for children. Almost 2,000 children age 14 and under are killed in automobile crashes each year and another 280,000 are injured. Proper use of car seats reduces the risk of death significantly — by as much as 71 percent for infants and by about 55 percent for toddlers. The CDC also estimates that 50,000 serious injuries could be prevented and 455 lives saved each year if all children under 5 used safety seats. In spite of the dangers, 40 percent of American children 4 and under routinely ride unrestrained. But Emergency Department physicians at Washington University School of Medicine and Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis are trying to change that. They are targeting low income families, training them in proper use of child safety seats and then giving those families gift certificates that can be redeemed for the seats. The Safe and Secure program hopes to cut down on deaths and injuries from car crashes by providing more than 2,000 free car and booster seats to Missouri families who live below the poverty level as determined by Medicaid.

Courtesy Missouri Historical Society Photographs and Prints Collections.Lee DeForest (seated) sending wireless telegraph message from the Louisiana Purchase Exposition. Photograph, 1904.April 30, 2004, marks the 100th anniversary of the 1904 World’s Fair, an event that showcased science advancements that startled the imagination a century ago and foretold technology still in place today. The fair was headquartered on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis, where significant scientific developments continue today, most notably at the nation’s second-ranked medical school but also across many science and engineering disciplines.

The Sacagawea Golden DollarAs the nation commemorates the 200th anniversary of the 1804-06 Lewis and Clark Expedition, the explorers’ journals, which offer a veritable treasure trove of information, are being scrutinized as never before. Two historians at Washington University in St. Louis say, however, that most scholars studying the journals aren’t familiar with the literature of the time, and therefore don’t thoroughly understand the content. For example, Lewis writes that Sacagawea, the only woman on the expedition, became extremely ill due to her “taking could” (sic). Most reading that passage interpreted it as “taking a cold. The Washington University researchers think that actually she was pregnant again and had a miscarriage because “taking a cold” was a euphemism for pregnancy back then.