The Education Of Alice Hamilton

As the founder of the Occupational Safety and Health Act and the first woman faculty member of Harvard University, Alice Hamilton will be remembered for her contributions to public health and her remarkable career. Born and raised in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Hamilton attended several medical schools contributing to her lifelong dedication to learning. Focusing on the investigation of the health and safety conditions – or rather lack thereof – in the nation’s factories and mines during the second decade of the twentieth century, her discoveries led to factory and mine level-initiated reforms, and to city, state, and federal reform legislation. It also led to a greater recognition in the nation’s universities for formal academic programs in industrial and public health. In 1919 the Harvard officials considered Hamilton the best qualified person in the country to lead their effort in this area. The Education of Alice Hamilton is an inspiring story of a woman dedicated to erudition and helping others.

A biography of Harvard’s first female faculty member—a pioneer in public health and worker safety. Born and raised in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Alice Hamilton graduated from medical school in 1893, and after completing internships at hospitals in Minneapolis and Boston, she rejected private practice and began dedicating herself to public health. Focusing on the investigation of the health and safety measures—or rather lack thereof—in the nation’s factories and mines during the second decade of the twentieth century, her discoveries led to factory and mine level-initiated reforms, and to city, state, and federal reform legislation. It also led to a greater recognition in the nation’s universities for formal academic programs in industrial and public health. In 1919, Harvard officials considered Hamilton the best-qualified person in the country to lead their effort in this area. The Education of Alice Hamilton is an inspiring story of a woman who lived a remarkable life at a time when women were not always welcome in medical circles—serving as personal physician to Jane Addams, founder of Hull House; traveling to the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany; researching the effects of mercury, carbon monoxide, benzene, and other substances on workers. She was sometimes ignored—such as when she warned of the dangers of lead in gasoline decades before it was eventually banned—but she persisted, and thanks in part to her groundbreaking work, Americans now enjoy the protection of OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Act.

Alice Hamilton (1869-1970), a pioneer in the study of diseases of the workplace, a founder of industrial toxicology in the United States, and Harvard's first woman professor, led a long and interesting life. Always a consummate professional, she was also a prominent social reformer whose interest in the environmental causes of disease and in promoting equitable living conditions developed during her years as a resident at Jane Addams's Hull-House. This legendary figure now comes to life in an integrated work of biography and letters that reveals the personal as well as the professional woman. In documenting Hamilton's evolution from a childhood of privilege to a life of social advocacy, the volume opens a window on women reformers and their role in Progressive Era politics and reform. Because Hamilton was a keen observer and vivid writer, her letters--more than 100 are included here--bring an unmatched freshness and immediacy to a range of subjects, such as medical education; personal relationships and daily life at Hull House; the women's peace movement; struggles for the protection of workers' health; academic life at Harvard; politics and civil liberties during the cold war; and the process of growing old. Her story takes the reader from the Gilded Age to the Vietnam War.

EXPLORIMKimE DANGEROUS TRADES c y n y ALICE HAMILTON, M. D. Illustrations by Norah Hamilton AN ATLANTIC MONTHLY PRESS BOOK UTTLK, BROWN AND COMPANY BOSTON To My Three Sisters And My Brother The author is indebted to the Atlantic, Harpers, the American Mercury, and Survey Graphic for per mission to use certain material which appeared originally in the pages of those magazines. e, ontents I Introduction 3 II The Old House 18 III I Chose Medicine 38 IV Hull-House Within 57 V Hull-House Without 76 VI Lawyers and Doctors 95 VII The Illinois Survey 114 VIII The Federal Survey 127 IX Smelting, Enameling, and Painting 138 X Europe in 1915 161 XI War Industries 183 XII Dead Fingers 200 XIII Arizona Copper 208 XIV Europe in 1919 223 XV Boston 252 XVI Social Trends 290 XVII The League of Nations 299 XVIII Russia in 1924 318 XIX The Lawrence Strike 353 XX Germany, 1933 360 Contents XXI Viscose Rayon 387 XXII Germany in 1938 395 XXIII Hadlyme 405 Index 429 Alice Hamilton Frontispiece Old Hamilton Homestead in Fort Wayne 22 Jane Addanis 64 Working Women at a Union Meeting 82 Lead Smelter in Utah 122 Concentrating Mill and Heaps of Tailings in Tri-State Region 146 Canaries in a Picric-Acid Plant 186 Steel Mill on the River 258

"Changing the face of medicine", an exhibition that celebrates America's women physicians, premiered in the fall of 2003 at the National Library of Medicine. This calendar spotlights some of those women--their lives, their dreams, their accomplishments, and the challenges they faced in becoming physicians..."-- Directors statement.