Alice Hamilton: A Life in Letters (Commonwealth Fund Publications) - Softcover

Sicherman, Barbara

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0674015541 ISBN 13: 9780674015548

Publisher: Harvard University Press, 1984

Synopsis

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' 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.

About this title

About the Author

Barbara Sicherman is Kenan Professor of American Institutions and Values, Trinity College, and coeditor of Notable American Women: The Modern Period.

Review

Brings to life a remarkable woman ... Alice Hamilton, pioneer in industrial medicine and, so to speak, the grandmother of the Occupational Health and Safety Administration, was one of that extraordinary first flight of activist women who set about changing the world... A memorable portrait of a woman and an age. (New York Times Book Review)

Elegant and illuminating... A book to be read and reread, and pondered for all that it can teach. (South Atlantic Quarterly)

A book which captures and illuminates Hamilton's many-faceted personality and career. It allows us to become acquainted with a complex and changing individual while placing her thoughts and activities within the context of late 19th-century feminist thought... We come away from Alice Hamilton with an enriched sense of the personal and social dilemmas her generation of educated women reformers sought to resolve. (Technology and Culture)

In our age without heroes, it is both refreshing and valuable to be reminded of heroic lives. Alice Hamilton was such a person. Her rich and varied life, her fortitude and accomplishments, are brought to light in this deeply affecting, beautifully constructed biography. (Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences)

One of the most fulfilling books about the life and work of a physician that I have read in many a year... A beautiful piece of scholarship and a book that is a pleasure to read and to think about. (Bulletin of the History of Medicine)

Edition details

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Publication date: 1984
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0674015541
• ISBN 13: 9780674015548
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 488