Alice Hamilton: settlement physician, occupational health pioneer.

Abstract

Alice Hamilton (1869–1970), best known as America's pioneering industrial toxicologist, was one of an impressive group of young women who lived in Hull House, in Chicago, Ill, at the turn of the 20th century under the charismatic leadership of Jane Addams.1 She received her MD degree from the University of Michigan in 1893, studied in Germany and at Johns Hopkins University, then came to Hull House in 1897 when she accepted a teaching position at the Women's Medical School of Northwestern University. At Hull House, she had the experience of living close to Chicago's immigrant population, and she was deeply affected by the poverty, injustice, and disease they suffered. In these passages selected from her 1943 autobiography, she relates her first efforts to set up a well-baby clinic and tells of her discovery that, in some ways at least, the Italian immigrant women understood more about baby care than her scientific mentors. She began to develop a deep trust in and respect for the perceptions of immigrant working people. When she began to study occupational diseases, this habit of listening carefully proved crucial. She felt that the honest and heartfelt reports of workers often had more credibility than the statements of their employers. The workers' own accounts provided key insights into previously undocumented toxic exposures and led Hamilton to new knowledge of workplace hazards. In 1919, her reputation as an authority in the field of occupational medicine brought Hamilton an appointment as assistant professor at Harvard Medical School—as the first woman ever appointed to the Harvard medical faculty. “Yes, I am the first woman on the Harvard faculty—but not the first one who should have been appointed!” she noted tartly.2 When Hamilton retired from Harvard in 1935, she was still an assistant professor. Hamilton's perceptiveness about her own situation and that of others extended to her appreciation of the larger connections between occupational illness, poverty, immigrant status, and social discrimination. As this selection from her autobiography shows, she had a clear analytical as well as empathic understanding of how immigrants' desire for a better life in America was often exploited by their employers.