Labor History in the Schools -- Connecticut

J.F. Barton
Guest

/ #11 Labor History Studies must include Alice Hamilton, M.D.

2011-03-18 00:20

Because I never studied labor history, I only recently learned about the pioneering work of Dr. Alice Hamilton to improve safety in the "dangerous trades." She lived at Hull House in Chicago (where she identified work-related diseases in her neighbors) and later at Harvard taught occupational medicine, the field she had founded. For decades she was a federal consultant on work-related health problems. After retiring in 1935, she moved to her summer home in Lyme, CT, where she wrote her autobiography. She died there in 1970 at the age of 101. The U.S. Postal Service honored her in 1995 with a postage stamp in its Great Americans Series for her work as a social reformer. We have her to thank for OSHA.