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Women In Health History - In Public Service - Page 2

© Gretchen Malik

It is through the efforts of pathologist Alice Hamilton that the United States has industrial-safety laws. She was chosen by the governor of Illinois in 1910 to chair a commission for occupational diseases. Her firsthand examinations of the dangers caused by the use of lead and phosphorus paved the way for the states' first workers' compensaiton laws. In a similar role for the government, she discovered that nitrous fumes caused a number of deaths in the high-explosives industry. Hamilton was the first female faculty member of Harvard University in 1919, but was denied access to the Harvard Club and was barred for participating in graduating ceremonies. Her book, "Industrial Poisons in the United States," written in 1925, assured her a position as one of the world's authorities on industrial toxins.

"No woman can call herself free until she can consciously choose whether she will or will not be a mother," said Margaret Sanger, founder of the birth-control movement in the United States. As a nurse during a time when contraception was illegal, Sanger saw firsthand the number of women deperate to avoid repeated pregnancies. Sanger became convinced of the need for social reform after she found a 28-year-old mother of three dead after a second abortion in less than six months. Sanger published a magazine and pamphlets on contraception and family planning despite many run-ins with the law. She even opened the first birth-control clinic in Brooklyn, which later became known as the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

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