HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (August 31, 2011) — Judith Walzer Leavitt, an internationally recognized pioneer of research on medical history and women’s history, will deliver two public lectures at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAHuntsville) on the history of childbirth. The Women’s Studies Program sponsors Leavitt’s visit to UAHuntsville with support from the Humanities Center Eminent Scholars Program. Both lectures are free and open to the public. Leavitt’s first lecture, “Women and the Medicalization of Childbirth in American History,” will be presented on Tuesday, Sept. 20 at 7:30 p.m., in the Chan Auditorium of the Business Administration Building. On Thursday, Sept. 22 at 11:10 a.m., Leavitt will address the UAHuntsville Honors Forum with a talk entitled “Make Room for Daddy: Men’s Roles in Childbirth in Twentieth Century America,” in the Frank Franz Hall multipurpose room. Leavitt is from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, where she is the Rupple Bascom and Ruth Bleier Professor Emerita of Medical History & Bioethics, History of Science, and Gender and Women’s Studies. Her public lectures at UAHuntsville will explore the history of childbirth and its implications for social understandings of womanhood and manhood and how these conceptions have changed over time. Her UAHuntsville lectures are based on her two books Brought to Bed: Childbearing in America, 1750-1950 (Oxford University Press, 1986) and Make Room for Daddy: The Journey from the Waiting Room to the Delivery Room (University of North Carolina Press, 2009). Leavitt’s current research, continues to examine gender and public health through the twentieth century, and includes two projects: one that looks at home health care during the antibiotic transition and the second which carries forward her childbirth studies. She has published numerous articles and book chapters, delivered dozens of lectures in the United States and abroad, and authored or edited eight books on public health and women’s health in social, economic, and political contexts. Leavitt holds a B.S. degree in social sciences from Antioch College, and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in History from the University of Chicago. For more information Joyce Anderson-Maples, (256) 824-2101 maplesj@uah.edu