Dr.
Alice Hamilton
Class of 1992
Background:
Alice Hamilton was born in New York City in 1869, but was
raised in Fort Wayne, Indiana, USA. During her youth, she
expressed a determination to become a medical missionary.
Upon graduation from medical school at the University of Michigan
in 1893, she worked at hospitals in Minneapolis and Boston
before returning to Michigan for graduate work. She then went
to Europe for a year of study at the University of Leipzig,
Germany (1895-96), followed by a year at The Johns Hopkins
University.
Professional
Experience:
In 1897, Dr. Hamilton was appointed professor of Pathology
at Northwestern University Women's Medical School. She became
a resident of Jane Addams' Hull House in Chicago, a famous
settlement house that became a powerful vehicle for social
change in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Hull House
served as a forum where judges, authors, political and social
activists, religious leaders, and other men and women of leadership
and prominence gathered to plan social change. In 1919, the
dean of the Harvard Medical School, who had initiated the
first degree program in the United States in industrial hygiene,
offered Dr. Hamilton an appointment to teach that subject.
She accepted, thus becoming the first woman member of the
Harvard faculty. Upon retirement from Harvard in 1935, Dr.
Hamilton returned to the United States Department of Labor,
where the late Frances Perkins was Secretary of Labor and
a fellow member of the social reform network. In accepting
the part-time job as medical consultant to the Division of
Labor Standards, Dr. Hamilton rejected a full-time position
with the United States Public Health Service, feeling that
she could better serve the working men and women of this nation
with the Department of Labor.
Career
Highlights:
Dr. Hamilton established the field of industrial medicine
in the United States at a time when society in general, and
the profession in particular, was highly restrictive toward
women. When, in 1910, the governor of Illinois established
the first Occupational Disease Commission in the United States,
which was to lead to a workman's compensation law for his
state, he appointed Dr. Hamilton its managing director. At
the 1910 International Congress on Occupational Accidents
and Diseases in Brussels, the United States Commissioner of
Labor in the Department of Commerce (the Labor Department
was not created until 1913) was so impressed by Dr. Hamilton's
report on her Illinois investigations that he asked her to
make a similar survey for the federal government. She praised
the "informal and extra-legal method" of investigation,
conference, and agreement between manufacturers and state
and federal health officials as "the only way a quick
and effective reform can be brought about in several states
simultaneously." As a consultant to the Department of
Labor, Dr. Hamilton conducted surveys, offered advice, attended
conferences, testified at hearings, and brought neglected
problems to the department's attention. As the only woman
member of the League of Nations Health Committee, Dr. Hamilton
was invited to the Soviet Union in 1924 to observe the progress
being made in the field of industrial hygiene since the revolution
in 1919. The Alice Hamilton Occupational Safety and Health
Science Award was established to recognize outstanding contributions
to the field. On February 27, 1987, the Alice Hamilton Laboratory
for Occupational Safety and Health was dedicated in Cincinnati,
Ohio. She is credited with saving literally thousands of workers'
lives as a result of her research with industrial poisons
alone. Dr. Hamilton died at her home in Hadlyme, Connecticut,
September 22, 1970, a few months before the Occupational Safety
and Health Act of 1970 was signed into law.
