The phenomenal success of oral contraceptives in the 1960s revolutionized birth control in America. Andrea Tone, who holds the Canada Research Chair in the Social History of Medicine at McGill University, will discuss birth control innovations in the post-Pill era during “The Bitter Fruits of Progress: Contraceptive Innovation in the Age of the Pill.” Her talk will be held Thursday, March 27, at 6 p.m. in the Ford Auditorium in the Allen Memorial Medical Library building.
Tone will speak about the history of birth control as this year’s speaker for the Percy Skuy Lecture, sponsored by the Case Western Reserve University’s Dittrick Medical History Center. The event is free and open to the public.
A historian by training, Tone will explore how the pill’s popularity changed the path of innovation, encouraging an outpouring of new birth control technologies—pills, patches, implants, rings and more.
She will answer such questions as: how truly revolutionary are these latest innovations, and who wins, who loses and what’s at stake in this recent birth control bonanza?
Tone has joint appointments in the Departments of Social Studies of Medicine and History in the Faculties of Medicine and Arts at McGill University. She also holds an associate position in the Division of Transcultural Psychiatry in McGill’s Department of Psychiatry.
In addition to the lecture, individuals can learn more about the history of birth control by visiting the Dittrick Museum of Medical History, open on weekdays, or view the history of birth control in an online exhibit at artsci.case.edu/dittrick/online-exhibits/history-of-birth-control/.
An RSVP is required by Monday, March 24, to jennifer.nieves@case.edu or call 216.368.3648.