Dr. Donald Weatherman
Museum Looks at the G.I. Bill and the Rise of the Suburbs Final Program Nov. 1
Old Independence Regional Museum in Batesville – All during 2015 Old Independence Regional Museum has commemorated the end of World War II 70 years ago. One of its exhibits calls for visitors to take time to remember those who fought, along with those at home who supported the soldiers. The museum has hosted five programs related to this subject.
On Sunday, November 1, at 2 p.m. the last program of this series will feature benefits and changes after the war. Dr. Donald Weatherman, president of Lyon College, will speak about veteran’s benefits and the changes in housing after the war.
“Toward the end of World War II Congress passed the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944. We came to call this simply the G.I. Bill.” Weatherman said. “It established veterans’ hospitals, provided for occupational rehabilitation, and granted stipends to cover tuition and living expenses for veterans attending college or trade schools.”
The G.I. Bill directly affected local students. During the war Arkansas College (now Lyon College) had lost most of its male students due to their enlistment in the military. Both the returning soldiers and the college could then benefit.
“In January of 1945 Arkansas College received its first G.I. Bill enrollee—Lowell Southerland from the community of Floral,” stated Weatherman. “That bill was largely responsible for a two-third’s increase in the size of the student body between May 1945 and May 1946. By the next year the enrollment doubled to more than 300 full-time students, and postwar students filled all available dormitories to overflowing.”
According to published historian Brooks Blevins, the G.I. Bill was one of the most important pieces of social legislation of the twentieth century and perhaps the most important higher education-related congressional act in American history.
Weatherman will also talk about the great suburban explosion after the war. An important provision of the G.I. Bill was low interest, zero down payment home loans for servicemen. This encouraged millions of American families to move out of urban apartments and into suburban homes.
“Our family benefited from these low interest suburban houses while we lived in California during my childhood,” Weatherman said. He was originally from southern California, where he found his passion for academics. He earned his doctorate in American government and political philosophy.
After teaching in California State University, the College of Idaho, and the College of St. Catherine in Minnesota, he came to Lyon College as a professor of political philosophy. In 1988 he spent six months in Washington, D.C. as one of the first Bradley Resident Scholars at the Heritage Foundation. He and his wife Lynn later moved to South Carolina where he served for 10 years as Vice President and Dean of Erskine College. Weatherman returned to Lyon College to serve as its 17th and current president.
The program will be free and open to the public. Normal museum hours are: Tuesday-Saturday, 9 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Admission is $3.00 for adults, $2.00 for seniors and $1.00 for children. The museum is located at 380 South 9th street, between Boswell and Vine Streets in Batesville.
Old Independence is a regional museum serving a 12-county area: Baxter, Cleburne, Fulton, Independence, Izard, Jackson, Marion, Poinsett, Sharp, Stone, White, and Woodruff. Parts of these present-day counties comprised the original Independence County in 1820’s Arkansas territory.
