Customer Reviews

Exploring The Dangerous Trades: The Autobiography Of Alice Hamilton, M.d.

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This is the autobiography of the first woman faculty member at Harvard Medical School; the first doctor specializing in occupational health in any country; and the person who coined the term "industrial hygienist". The stories she tells about occupational exposures in her time are ghastly, but what is more interesting is her connection to the progressive politics of her time (she was a socialist and pacifist and opposed America's entry into the First World War). Also interesting is her incredible longevity (she lived to be 101) and her effect on generations of health professionals, labor activists and feminists. She was teaching at Harvard in the 1890s, worked at Hull House with Jane Addams, inspired Eleanor Roosevelt in the 1930s, then lived long enough to sign a letter of protest against the Vietnam War in 1964. If you know an occupational health professional or union officer, and worry they will burn out in this current dark era, give them this book.

Alice Hamilton was a pathfinder, and a true contributor to workplace health and safety. This book is a must for all students of the environment.

I read this because I was interested in Alice Hamilton's experiences in industrial medicine and the investigations she completed. However, I would say that the majority of this book is about her socialist and pacifist activities before, during and after WWI. Of 23 chapters (I have an older version of the book), 6 are about her time spent in Europe (very little of this involves industrial health), 6 are about her upbringing and time spent at Hull-House (Hull-House chapters are particularly boring). That leaves 11 about industrial health activties. However, the chapters about her time in Europe tend to be very long; the chapters on industrial health very short (in one case 7 pages). The book is interesting, but it becomes tiresome about halfway through. She makes sure to list the names of the people with whom she dined, visited, chatted, worked, studied, etc (she was a serious name-dropper). That makes for a lot of names. At times, the names take up enough space that they could be a paragraph in and of themselves. I found this annoying after awhile. The book just wasn't what I was expecting. By the time I was 3/4 finished I decided not to finish it.