At only 5 foot 3 inches, Alice Hamilton may have seemed innocuous in her dark tweeds, but as she sought in the early 20th century to assess the health of workers in factories that produced lead, explosives, coal, and noxious dyes, she stood toe to toe with those who ran the plants, according to an October 23, 2019 opinion piece in Scientific American.
Hamilton, Harvard’s first female faculty member, is considered the founder of industrial medicine in America and is credited with pioneering national safety standards.
The article quoted Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s Joseph Brain, Cecil K. and Philip Drinker Professor of Environmental Physiology and co-author of the forthcoming book “The Education of Alice Hamilton.” Brain called Hamilton an extraordinary figure who redefined public health by both generating solid research and applying it to improve the lives of those she studied.
“What I find most memorable about Alice Hamilton more than other historic figures in public health is that she always felt it was one thing to get data and do good science but then you weren’t really finished unless something happened … unless you could use that knowledge to improve labor standards and other things that were necessary,” said Brain.
Read the Scientific American article: The Woman Who Founded Industrial Medicine