Related BLS programs | Related articles
BLS and Alice Hamilton:
pioneers in industrial health
In September 1910, Alice Hamilton, chief medical examiner for the Illinois State Commission on Occupational Diseases, was in Brussels attending the International Congress on Occupational Diseases, at which the Belgian delegate dismissed U.S. activities in the field of industrial hygiene with the comment, "Ca n'existe pas [They do not exist]".1 But that condition had already begun to change, and at the International Congress, Hamilton met Charles P. Neill, Commissioner of Labor, one of the persons primarily responsible for the recent surge in publicity on industrial poisons. Shortly thereafter, Hamilton accepted Neill's proposal that she undertake investigations for the Bureau of Labor, launching a decade of cooperation in which she studied diseases and hazards associated with the lead, explosives, pottery, and dye industries.
This excerpt is from an article published in the June 1986 issue of the Monthly Labor Review. The full text of the article is available in Adobe Acrobat's Portable Document Format (PDF). See How to view a PDF file for more information.
Read abstract
Download full article in PDF
(423K)
1 Alice Hamilton, Exploring the Dangerous Trades, An Autobiography of Alice Hamilton, M.D. (Boston, MA, Little, Brown & Co., 1943), p. 128.
Related BLS programs
Safety and Health Statistics
Related Monthly Labor Review articles
Occupational injury and illness rates, 1992-96: why they fell.—Nov. 1998.
Collective bargaining agreements: safety and health provisions.—May 1998.
Injuries and illnesses among bituminous and lignite coal miners.—Oct. 1993.
Safety and health in roofing and sheet metal.—Sept. 1990.
Within Monthly Labor Review Online:
Welcome | Current Issue | Index | Subscribe | Archives
Exit Monthly Labor Review Online:
BLS Home | Publications & Research Papers
