Alice Hamilton (February 27, 1869 – September 22, 1970) was an American physician, research scientist, and author. She was a leading expert in the field of occupational health, laid the foundation for health and safety protections, and a pioneer in the field of industrial toxicology. She led efforts to reduce lead poisoning.
Hamilton trained at the University of Michigan Medical School. Her residency at Hull House in Chicago from 1897 to 1919 put her in contact with an extensive demographic of working-class households, and the work-life dangers they faced. She also became a professor of pathology at the Woman's Medical School of Northwestern University in 1897. In 1919, she became the first woman appointed to the faculty of Harvard University.
Her scientific research focused on the study of occupational illnesses and the dangerous effects of industrial metals and chemical compounds. In addition to her scientific work, Hamilton was a social-welfare reformer, humanitarian, and peace activist. She received numerous honors and awards, including the Albert Lasker Public Service Award. Her work led to improvements in safety and regulation, and is sometimes credited with leading to the founding of the United States' Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
Early life and family Hamilton, the second child of Montgomery Hamilton (1843–1909) and Gertrude (née Pond) Hamilton (1840–1917), was born on February 27, 1869, in Manhattan, New York City, New York. She spent a sheltered childhood among an extended family in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where her grandfather, Allen Hamilton, an Irish immigrant, had settled in 1823. He married Emerine Holman, the daughter of Indiana Supreme Court Justice Jesse Lynch Holman, in 1828 and became a successful Fort Wayne businessman and a land speculator. Much of the city of Fort Wayne was built on land that he once owned. Alice grew up on the Hamilton family's large estate that encompassed a three-block area of downtown Fort Wayne.The family compound included three homes: her grandparents' homestead, called Old House; Red House, the home of her uncle, Andrew Holman Hamilton, and his family; and White House, where Alice and her family lived. See Sicherman, Alice Hamilton, A Life in Letters, pp. 13–15. The Hamilton family also spent many summers at Mackinac Island, Michigan. For the most part, the second and third generations of the extended Hamilton family, which included Alice's family, as well as her uncles, aunts, and cousins, lived on inherited wealth.Sicherman, Alice Hamilton, A Life in Letters, pp. 14, 25.
Montgomery Hamilton, Alice's father, attended Princeton University and Harvard Law School. He also studied in Germany, where he met Gertrude Pond, the daughter of a wealthy sugar importer. They were married in 1866.Weber, p. 31.Sicherman, Alice Hamilton, A Life in Letters, pp. 15, 17. Alice's father became a partner in a wholesale grocery business in Fort Wayne, but the partnership dissolved in 1885 and he withdrew from public life. Although the business failure caused a financial loss for the family, Alice's outspoken mother, Gertrude, remained socially active in the Fort Wayne community.Sicherman, Alice Hamilton, A Life in Letters, p. 18.
Alice was the second eldest of five siblings that included three sisters (Edith, Margaret, and Norah) and a brother (Arthur "Quint"), all of whom were accomplished in their respective fields. The girls remained especially close throughout their childhood and into their professional careers. Edith (1867–1963), an educator and headmistress at Bryn Mawr School in Baltimore, became a classicist and renowned author for her essays and best-selling books on ancient Greek and Roman civilizations, including the classic introductory text Mythology. Margaret (1871–1969), like her older sister Edith, became an educator and headmistress at Bryn Mawr School. Norah (1873–1945) was an artist, living and working at Hull House. Arthur (1886–1967), the youngest Hamilton sibling, became a writer, professor of Spanish, and assistant dean for foreign students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Arthur was the only sibling to marry; he and his wife, Mary (Neal) Hamilton, had no children.Sicherman, Alice Hamilton, A Life in Letters, pp. 11–13.
Education
Hamilton's parents homeschooled their children from an early age. Following a family tradition among the Hamilton women, Alice completed her early education at Miss Porter's Finishing School for Young Ladies (also known as Miss Porter's School) in Farmington, Connecticut, from 1886 to 1888. In addition to Alice, three of her aunts, three cousins, and all three of her sisters were alumnae of the school.
Although Hamilton had led a privileged life in Fort Wayne, she aspired to provide some type of useful service to the world and chose medicine as a way to financially support herself. Hamilton, who was an avid reader, also cited literary influence for inspiring her to become a physician, even though she had not yet received any training in the sciences: "I meant to be a medical missionary to Teheran, having been fascinated by the description of Persia in [Edmond] O'Donovan's The Merv Oasis. I doubted if I could ever be good enough to be a real missionary, but if I could care for the sick, that would do instead."
After her return to Indiana from school in Connecticut, Hamilton studied science with a high school teacher in Fort Wayne and anatomy at Fort Wayne College of Medicine for a year before enrolling at the University of Michigan Medical School in 1892.Weber, p. 32. There she had the opportunity of studying with "a remarkable group of men" – John Jacob Abel (pharmacology), William Henry Howell (physiology), Frederick George Novy (bacteriology), Victor C. Vaughan (biochemistry) and George Dock (medicine). During her last year of study she served on Dr. Dock's staff, going on rounds, taking histories and doing clinical laboratory work. Hamilton earned a medical degree from the university in 1893.
In 1893–94, after graduation from medical school, Hamilton completed internships at the Northwestern Hospital for Women and Children in Minneapolis and at the New England Hospital for Women and Children in Roxbury, a suburban neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, to gain some clinical experience.Weber, p. 33. Hamilton had already decided that she was not interested in establishing a medical practice and returned to the University of Michigan in February 1895 to study bacteriology as a resident graduate and lab assistant of Frederick George Novy. She also began to develop an interest in public health.
In the fall of 1895, Alice and her older sister, Edith, traveled to Germany. Alice planned to study bacteriology and pathology at the advice of her professors at the University of Michigan, while Edith intended to study the classics and attend lectures.In 1894 Edith Hamilton, a fellow in Latin at Bryn Mawr College, was awarded the Mary E. Garrett European Fellowship that provided the funds to enable the two sisters to pursue further studies abroad for an academic year. See Sicherman, Alice Hamilton, A Life in Letters, pp. 89–90.Weber, p. 43. The Hamilton sisters faced some opposition to their efforts to study abroad. Although Alice was welcomed at the University of Frankfurt am Main, her requests to study at the Friedrich Wilhelm University of Berlin were rejected and she experienced some prejudice against women when the two sisters studied at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München and Leipzig University.Hamilton described their experiences in Germany in her autobiography. See See also:
When Alice returned to the United States in September 1896, she continued postgraduate studies for a year at the Johns Hopkins University Medical School. There she worked with Simon Flexner on pathological anatomy. She also had the opportunity to learn from William H. Welch and William Osler.
Career Early years at Chicago's Hull House In 1897 Hamilton accepted an offer to become a professor of pathology at the Woman's Medical School of Northwestern University. Soon after her move to Chicago, Illinois, Hamilton fulfilled a longtime ambition to become a member and resident of Hull House, the settlement house founded by social reformer Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr.Sicherman, Alice Hamilton: A Life in Letters, p. 111. While Hamilton taught and did research at the medical school during the day, she maintained an active life at Hull House, her full-time residence from 1897 to 1919. On how Hull House had helped Hamilton to find her true self she said; It "satisfied every longing, for companionship, for the excitement of new experiences, for constant intellectual stimulation, and for the sense of being caught up in a big movement which enlisted my enthusiastic loyalty." Hamilton became Jane Addams' personal physician and volunteered her time at Hull House to teach English and art. She also directed the men's fencing and athletic clubs, operated a well-baby clinic, and visited the sick in their homes.Weber, p. 34. Other inhabitants of Hull House included Alice's sister Norah, and her friends Rachelle and Victor Yarros. Although Hamilton moved away from Chicago in 1919 when she accepted a position as an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School, she returned to Hull House and stayed for several months each spring until Jane Addams's death in 1935.
Through her association and work at Hull House and living side by side with the poor residents of the community, Hamilton witnessed the effects that the dangerous trades had on workers' health through exposure to carbon monoxide and lead poisoning. As a result, she became increasingly interested in the problems the workers faced, especially occupational injuries and illnesses. The experience also caused Hamilton to begin considering how to merge her interests in medical science and social reform to improve the health of American workers.
When the Woman's Medical School closed in 1902, Hamilton took a position as bacteriologist with the Memorial Institute for Infectious Diseases, working with Ludvig Hektoen. During this time, she also formed a friendship with bacteriologist Ruth Tunnicliffe. Hamilton investigated a typhoid epidemic in Chicago before focusing her research on the investigation of industrial diseases.Sicherman and Green, p. 304. Some of Hamilton's early research in this area included attempts to identify causes of typhoid and tuberculosis in the community surrounding Hull House. Her work on typhoid in 1902 led to the replacement of the chief sanitary inspector of the area by the Chicago Board of Health. Additionally, her 1905 study of respiratory diseases like scarlet fever placed her among the first health experts to advise doctors to wear face masks to prevent the spread of airborne viruses.
The study of industrial medicine (work-related illnesses) had become increasingly important because the Industrial Revolution of the late nineteenth century had led to new dangers in the workplace. In 1907, Hamilton began exploring existing literature from abroad. While many European countries were quick to redress industrial poisonings through research and legislative and procedural reform, America lagged behind for decades, with many American medical circles considering industrial hygiene "a subject tainted with Socialism or with feminine sentimentality for the poor". She set out to change the situation and published her first article on the topic in 1908.
Medical investigator