{"id":105014,"date":"2016-12-21T12:03:24","date_gmt":"2016-12-21T17:03:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=105014"},"modified":"2023-01-24T13:45:25","modified_gmt":"2023-01-24T18:45:25","slug":"whats-in-a-lewiston-name-lown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2016\/12\/21\/whats-in-a-lewiston-name-lown\/","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019s in a Lewiston name: Lown"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The area&#8217;s southernmost bridge across the Androscoggin (the one near the Auburn Rollodrome) was named for Lewiston son Dr. Bernard Lown in 2008.<\/p>\n<h3>Name that Bridge<\/h3>\n<p>Maine bridge number 3330, built in 1936 after a flood took out the original 1873 bridge, never had an official name. Locally, it was known as the South Bridge.<\/p>\n<h3>Lown, Lithuania, and Lewiston<\/h3>\n<p>The family of Bernard Lown were Jewish \u00e9migr\u00e9s from Lithuania. Lown\u2019s uncle Philip came to the U.S. in 1907 and owned shoe factories in Maine cities, including Auburn. Bernard\u2019s family arrived around 1934, and he attended Lewiston High School and the University of Maine. He received a medical degree from Johns Hopkins.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_105015\" style=\"width: 910px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2016\/12\/C9-lown-peace-bridge-8479.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-105015\" class=\"wp-image-105015 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2016\/12\/C9-lown-peace-bridge-8479-900x600.jpg\" alt=\"c9-lown-peace-bridge-8479\" width=\"900\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2016\/12\/C9-lown-peace-bridge-8479-900x600.jpg 900w, https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2016\/12\/C9-lown-peace-bridge-8479-400x267.jpg 400w, https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2016\/12\/C9-lown-peace-bridge-8479-200x133.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2016\/12\/C9-lown-peace-bridge-8479.jpg 1620w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-105015\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Standing on the Lewiston side of the Androscoggin River, Bernard Lown watches the festivities during dedication ceremonies for the Bernard Lown Peace Bridge on<br \/>Oct. 17, 2008. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n<h3>Peace Bridge<\/h3>\n<p>The bridge\u2019s full name is now the \u201cBernard Lown Peace Bridge.\u201d Besides being a cardiologist, Lown is a Nobel Peace Prize\u2013winning activist, receiving the 1985 award as co-founder of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War.<\/p>\n<h3>The Bates Peace<\/h3>\n<p>Local resident Al Harvie \u201965 pushed to name the bridge for Lown. Larry Gilbert and John Jenkins \u201874, then the respective mayors of Lewiston and Auburn, supported the idea. The Maine Legislature approved the naming thanks to a bill submitted by then-Rep. Dick Wagner, professor emeritus of psychology.<\/p>\n<h3>\u2018Timely Reminders\u2019<\/h3>\n<p>When he received a Bates honorary degree in 1983, the citation noted that Lown\u2019s peace activism offered \u201ctimely reminders to his own profession that its power ought to be in service to the healing of nations.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3>Heart Healer<\/h3>\n<p>Lown invented the direct-current defibrillator in 1960, a vast improvement over AC defibrillation.<\/p>\n<p><em>This story was originally published the Fall 2016 issue of <\/em>Bates Magazine<em>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The area&#8217;s southernmost bridge across the Androscoggin River was named for Lewiston son Dr. Bernard Lown in 2008.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":105026,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[162,31],"tags":[943,10830,11507],"class_list":["post-105014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-medicine","category-lewiston-auburn","tag-androscoggin-river","tag-lewiston-auburn","tag-whats-in-a-lewiston-name"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105014"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105014\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":105064,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105014\/revisions\/105064"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}