Humanities Ph.D. student, Amy Beaudry, will defend her dissertation titled "Securing the Safety Pin’s Role in American Industrial History: A Study of This Object and the People Attached to It". This dissertation traces the origins of the contemporary safety pin to its ancestor, the fibula, in ancient Greece, and details its industrial and social history in America. Major topics include safety pin and safety pin machine inventors, companies, and workers; the development of this object and the safety pin industry in Connecticut as well as the safety pin’s production; and its changing uses and symbolism.