Document XOLpgXmvKrkD3jmxm58bZyD0w

FILE NAME: General Electric (GE) DATE: 0000 DOC#: GE029 DOCUMENT DESCRIPTION: Alice Hamilton Book Excerpt . Alice Hamilton at twenty-jour, the year she graduated from medical school (1893). ; &s 1 A H M A* jt 4 i A Lif uJ i i B arb a 1 k !' ;j 1i j .ai r '^ ....... Harvarc Cambri and L ii 1 i J Hull House's major figures, she became Alice Hamilton's closest triend.' One of Jane Addams' greatest strengths was the capacity to enlist the talents and loyalties o f such women. It was not just that she drew f them to her. Convinced that a settlement must be a place for enthu ? siasms, she permitted residents to find the sources of their own crea 4 tivity. Impartially she nurtured specialists in factory inspection, child labor, juvenile delinquency, and birth control. At once visionary and pragmatic, she refused to be bound by traditions, even those she had created. She was remarkably unpossessive and allowed, even urged, her residents to leave when she thought they could do more good-- or find greater happiness--elsewhere. Yet she did not spare herself if she thought she could be helpful.8 idents found alarming. Ot playground, proved so use Alice Hamilton's cncour were the most important of at Hull House "satisfied et excitement of new experiei and for the sense of being ca my enthusiastic loyalty." A appraisal ignores the difficu at Hull House in rcconcilir finding her own, authentic Always Miss Addams or J.A., even to longtime associates, she inspired intense loyalty in die most individualistic. Neither authori tarian nor sentimental, hers was a charismatic leadership compounded 2 5 To Agnes Hamilton of moral authority, intellectual integrity, and an indefinable quality that made others want to live up to her expectations. Her sadness, mirrored in her eyes, haunted those who knew her well or met her for the first time. After hearing her speak in the spring of 1897, Alice Hamilton described Jane Addams as "having looked upon the misery and sin of the world and having accepted them as an inevitable burden which she must bear with no hope of ever reforming them." Addams' spiritual loneliness set her apart from her colleagues, but they found her neither solemn nor unapproachable. She was without illusion or personal pride, and she had none of the love of martyrdom of some farsighted people.9 By 1897 Hull House had become a genuine neighborhood center, a channel for social action in city and state, and a model for reformers throughout the nation. Already the most famous American settlemem. it accommodated some twenty-five residents, three-fourths of them women, and received several thousand visitors each week. It harbored a kindergarten and nursery, a cooperative boarding house for working women, a gymnasium, theater, music school, and arc gallery; it also offered adult education classes ranging from Greek art and Dante to Lnglish composition and mechanical drawing. Open to speakers of the most radical stripe, the settlement early earned a reputation for radicalism and for godlessness as well. Some enterprises, like the dances and the Coffee House (which offered cheap and nutritious food as well as sociability) were thought to provide more salutary entertain ment than public dance halls and saloons, institutions that most rcs- Dearest Agnes, This is only a beginning lucky it will succeed. It is rr I can't remember. Last nigh and rested while she talked have her but I had planned you to write to me again. F: back with me. Last week v had expected, and this weel you. And I am not at all ir and show you things as I c< much better. As soon as 1 coming. You simply must t Mrs. Kelley I am growing very uncomfortable, howev and asking me if I thought t added "I hope not, for I fe urged Miss Addams very sti why, she said "Oh well. [ diem in Fort Wayne that I 1 had better have you in Hullmiserable. For of course I ar wrote me, you and Kathcrin 1 M fe and what things not to buy, then 1 am less like you than ever, for 1 \ don't, even, know whether 1 believe in not buying sweaters' clothes. i So I sat there and felt like a miserable hypocrite and wished you were | heie to do the things they will expect me to do. Mrs. Kelley I find j approachable and I can enjoy talking to her very much, but Miss 1 Addams still rattles me, indeed more so all the time, and I am at my very worst with her. i really am quite school-girlv in my relations with her; it is a remnant of youth which surprises me. I know when she comes into the room. 1 have pangs of idiotic jealousy toward the residents whom she is intimate with. She is--well she is quite perfect and I don't in the least mind raving over her to you, because byjanuary fifth you will be just as bad as 1, every bit. This is a typical evening here. Here in the back parlour l am sitting at the table and opposite to me is Miss Johnson, who is the street cleaning commissioner.' She is having a most killing time interviewing an old Irishman who wants a job from the city. He has brought his wife with him and she is scolding him tor saying he is sixty. She says he is only forty-five, although she insists he fought at Balaclava. Miss Johnson wants to know when his birthday comes, and his wife says "Say the fourth ofJuly, it sounds well." Now they are having a fuss about his naturalization papers. He says he never had any, his wife says they were lost in the snow out in Utah when Brigham Young ; I was dedicating the temple. At the other end of the table sits Miss Brockway, the sweet little girl who is engaged to Miss Addams' nephew.bMrs. Kelley is lying off on the sofa. In the front parlour are i Mr. Deknatel and Mrs. Valerio/ Mrs. Valerio speaks Italian and she T \ and the man with the queer name--he is our mournful widower-- arc taking the names of the people who are registering for classes. Miss Addams is on the sofa with a very nice North End man, a friend o f Miss Anderson's. They are looking over plans for an addition to the coffee-house. Miss Watson. Mr._Swope, Mr. Ball, Mr. Hooker, Miss Pitkin, Miss Gyles and all the others are managing classes and clubs in various room s/ In a few minutes a certain Dr. Blount is coming." It is a shc-doctor and a socialist. I met her some time ago and she it is whom Miss Addams destines to help me in some scheme ' for the amelioration of me condiiion of the Italian "neighbors." Then at nine o'clock wc are to have a residents' meeting, to divide up the duty of tending the door and shewing people over the house. Dr. Blount has just gone. Wc went up to Miss Addams' room and discussed a scheme which 1 haven't time to expound to-night. The [ 116 chief part of it is that 1needif Meantime I am to rake a class Do please help me with that Mr. Cox' which she said she in New York, but i am sure : them by writing to the Art L Norah insisted that all were ir opinion. Last night I intervie It is not to be started unless si nice-looking shop girls, a tin fat Jew, who looks like an oh Well, here if is five minutes sheet and haven't said one woi think it played a very small something about it. It gives me a big tugging ai ocean to-night. Write again sc heathen among many elect w a. Amanda Johnson, a graduate c inspector o f the nineteenth ward folic ment was the culmination o f Jane Ac b. Wilfreda Brockway, a native ol garten; at Jane Addams' instigation, was John Linn, a former resident w secretary. c. Frederick H. Deknatel, presidci charge o f the B oys' Clubs at Hull H tus wife. He remained a ioyai suppor trustee. Ameiic Robinson Valerio tat as an inspector for the Chicago Depa d. Lulu Watson had charge o f th graduate o f MIT, lived at Hull House for the Western Electric Company. He and also worked with the Boys' Club George Ellsworth Hooker, who hel resident who specialized in civic .tin missions, he was for a time an edito Wallace) taught evening classes and graduate o f Rockford College who li the gymnasium; she was also on the I the Moores; Mr. Valerio comes in to stay in Miss Gernon's room, Miss Thomas moves down to one of the Moore's rooms, Miss Gyles to the other, Miss Howe into Miss Gyles' room, and Miss Watson comes back to take her room again.' But you see, except for Miss i Watson no worker comes into the house and we are left without Miss Gernon. Ijust wish you could come back. Miss Addams told me this morning that she was afraid they would have to keep a permanent toter in the house and pay her twenty-five a month until the Fall, but of course you couldn't stay in the city. Mrs. Stevens says that it is very crying having the Valerios in the house together, for they jar dreadfully and it makes a very strained, uncomfortable time for ev erybody. [ feel forlorn about the changes. I wash things would stay as they have been. It is Sunday afternoon and I haven't been out all day and I think I will put on my things and go for a ride on the grip, as my back doesn't feel up to walking.^ Miss Strong[?] is ill and Mrs. Stevens has announced that she really cannot tote any more if she is to do any outside work and now with Miss Gernon going we really feel pretty despairing. Miss Addams is A going away for a week after the campaign to rest, in Ccdarville, which will be forlorn too. I Well 1 must go or I shall have no fresh air to-day. 1send you our campaign literature and an amusing catechism[?] which Miss Johnson brought in. lovingly Alice. .1 . Victor S. Yarros. a journalist, came to the United States as 2 young man to escape arrest for radical activities in his native Ukraine. Initially a writer tor Liberty, a journal o f philosophical anarchism, he later became an editor o f the Literary Digest and an editorialist for the Chicago Daily News. He also held a law degree and was associated with Clarence Harrow. b. Maud Gernon (later Yeomans) lived at Hull House while working as a visitor for the Chicago Board of Charities. Miss Bartlett (probably Jessie Bartlett) taught sloyd. a Swedish manual training system that involved woodcarving. c. Theodore Thomas was conductor o f the Chicago Orchestra. Mary Dayton Mill was studying with John Dewey at the University o f Chicago and taught at his Labo ratory School; she loomed with AH during part ol her residence at Huii House. In later years, she was active in the Henry Street and Greenwich House settlements in New York City. d. William Hill, who taught economics at the University o Chicago and was active in the Municipal Voters' League, chaired the campaign against Powers. Andrew Alex- 1 ?2 andcr Bruce, a former resident wh< Factory Inspectors, later became pr< c. Bather M athew was a nineteen attached to temperance organization f Bev. Aloysius A. Lambert, a Jest Powers' home church. g. George Murray, rhe neighbo: residents and assisted them with the an effort to reduce Pow ers' influence Italians in 1898; he edited the weekl h. Alzina Parsons Stevens, a unio under Florence Kelley, was one o f the hardships o f factory labor; in 1 Cook County Juvenile Court. i- Ernest Carroll M oore lived at University o f Chicago. He later taujj in founding the University o f Cal president and provost. Dorothea Lu House and was Jane Addams' liaisor was secretary o f the Dorcas Federal H owe (later Britton) was director o she later worked for the Juvenile Pr- j. "Grip" was colloquial for grip- A t the end of her first yea to work up an experiment. 5 she had completed twenty oi and did some lab work as \ spent two days a week tendir collecting milk samples for I avenues for enjoyment and f 2 7 To Agnes Hamilton Dearest Agnes, I wonder if you arc still it driven you and Jessie away. Wednesday, but ro-day the v endurable again. It is Sunday room., all the rest arc scattered. 1am in the octagon and the breeze is coming through the window delightfully. This is my last Sunday here for I go to Mackinaw, next Friday or Saturday. Think how much more time I shall have for writing when I am up there and have nothing interesting to write about, while here I have hundreds of things to teli you and never any time. The only reason why I am writing now is because 1 needn't send my weekly letter home this time. Margaret and Edith got to Mackinaw on Thursday and they are very cross because they have to wait a week for me. I think they are getting jealous of the House and suspect that my arbeit is but a pretext. Which, however, is not true. I cannot love even Hull-House in hot weather and I would have left day before yesterday if only I could have finished my literature. But I simply cannot do hard work when the thermom eter is over ninety. Yesterday it was ninety-four and my dispensary in the morning swarmed with children and Oh how hot they were! 1soaked myself in a tub of cold water after it was over and got partly cooled off, but when I got up to the Newberry [Library] in the after noon I was so hot again that my brains melted away and after threehours of it I just gave up and came home and got into the tub again. I think I could not live through these days ifit were not for the thought of a bicycle ride in the evening. Mary Hill and Mr. Swope and I purchased three wheels on the same day--all Monarch '97 and all the same price, twenty-five dollars. Last Tuesday I went for the first time on mine and i have been every evening since, it is simply delightful. We leave the nineteenth ward steaming and choking and melting and in fifteen minutes we are on the lake-shore drive spinning along with the air fresh on our faces and the lake before us and the moon just coining up. Wc usually go to one o f the most distant becr-gardcns, leave our wheels and stay for an hour or so listening to the music and drinking delicious coid Bavarian beer from stone mugs, ciien we mount again and reach home between eleven and twelve. And after a cold bath one goes to bed feeling deliciously instead of all melted and miserable as I usually do in such weather. One night it was so dreamy and still that wc kept on far, far out along the lake shore and when wc felt wc had left the world behind us we got off our wheels and went down to the water and took off our shoes and stockings and sat on the embankment paddling in the cold water. The lake was as still as a mirror and the moon was up and there was not a sound to tell us that wc were near a big city. Wc sat there until midnight and did not reach home until one o'clock. Wc have so infected the house with 124 enthusiasm that Mrs. b Miss Addams went out way to Oak Park and world for her. This a Addams and Mrs. Kell bicycles and the tanden: are going to the Smith side where there is a fan us bread and butter and over-looking the lake, our wheels. Mary and fourth but I think \ shall Mr. Deknatel says he v help. I am going to tak Speaking o f Mr. De back here last Wcdncsdt there next Wednesday, she came in and told m all right again. Oh how anything against him of engaged to him again, si of their marrying, and t John went to Cedarvilli his uncle and his consciei girl and he came back ' understood him and he their relation had been p< that he loved Louise an so great that she forga\ her promise to me and t she would not give in tc she could not feel in th Meantime she and Mr. Really it is striding on ' out together on the pori she still thinks that she lo to love, not any partieir You mustn't think rha for good. Mrs. Kelley's Miss Thomas, arc going ( Brockway, but those two places will be taken by Miss [Ellen Gales] Starr and Miss Benedict/ So I think we shall not have anybody new at all. It is almost dinner time and this is a very long letter. Write me i * soon. -. Very lovingly f Alice " I a. John Dewey and Alice Chipman D ewey, founders o f the influential Laboratory School o f the University o f Chicago, were closely associated with Hull House. John i D ewey was a trustee o f the settlement. b. in June AH had informed Agnes that Florence Kelley hoped to secure a position 1 investigating garment workers in Boston. ( c. Enclla Benedict, head o f the Hull House art studio from 1892 to 1943, also taught at the Art Institute o f Chicago. D espite A lice H amilton's initial apprehensions and an attack o f lice--a common penalty of "slumming"--the first year went well. During the summer she acknowledged her ability to "teach respectably and do some independent work as well." Returning to Hull House in the fall, she felt a comforting sense o f belonging: it was rather like being an "old girl" at Farmington. Alice hoped that Agnes, who had visited Hull House the previous winter, would return. But Agnes and Jessie Hamilton spent the next two years in Philadelphia studying at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.16 2 8 To Agnes Hamilton I i Ol l w <*') iiC i November 26m [18]9S I Dearest Agnes, I' I came home with a resolve to write all my overdue letters before 1 went back, beginning with Miss Thomas and Allen Williams and instead 1am writing to you who arc not necessary at all. 1did want, fj however, to thank you for your letter about Miss Addams and to apologize again for not having asked Miss Benedict about the scenery painting. I keep thinking of that and mentally kicking myself for my forgetfulness, for 1 feel sure my letter reached you too late. Then another stupid thing I did. Miss Addams gave me two invitations for 126 that Saturday evening, and did not dare send home to be I was afraid it would take toe was your old address, not Drexcl Art Institute, which 1 working in at all. Anyway it went to see Miss Davies/ Mi: read her all you and Edith v couldn't read more than ex adjectives. Mrs. Kelley was i woman who taught the deaf Miss Addams'. " She was qt what the Lady Jane had beei herself was much depressed ( to hear what you and Edith had a more unresponsive aud: so pretty, prettier than I eve. She is not coming to Phils was, she is going only to Bo: He amazed me the other day on "Women and Economics, since I was in Baltimore. I su view on women being self-: very cleverly written and I a; I talked the matter over with and I met her the other day. whose story 1told you, do y married and so agreed with is on excellent terms with h Wiic takes care ci Airs. Sect: fancy I should approve of n from Allen, and have an ex> says he is still at Pinckney st Miss Addams says she sav, her enthusiastic in her work of Miss Wald's settlement anc Addams that Miss Wald's wa: had the least bit o f settlcmei settlement and Rivington str think Hull-House must be ev< Miss Addams says that Miss Wald has never got over Mr. Bruce's performance that night at the House. Miss Dudley was speaking to her about Miss Wald's visit and asked "When was it that she was so dreadfully hurt by a savage attack upon the Jews?"'' You can imagine how badly Miss Addams felt about it. it is a lesson to me never to bring up the subject ofjews in any company whatever. Miss Addams says she is going to tell Mr. Bruce. Mr. Hooker is not back yet, neither is Miss Starr, but the latter comes in about a week's time. Mr. Dcknatel confided to me that he dreads her coming and he believes he will move down to our end of the table. I am so glad I am safely there already/ We are all worried about Miss Brockway. We have had to brace her up most vigourously all the time, but this last month it has really been almost impossible to keep her from throwing the whole thing up and breaking her contract. To be sure it was her month of night duty and she was worn out, but worse than that was John Linn. He writes to her constantly and has been twice to see her and she has not enough strength of character to send back his letters and refuse to see him, so the affair is half off and half on and she cannot devote herself exclusively to her work and lose herself in it, because her mind is full of him. The result is she is a very poor nurse and she does not take the least interest in her patients or in learning things. It is a pretty serious outlook for the poor child. Aren't things badly mixed in this world? Here is a girl who hates independence and longs to be shielded and protected and managed and has no cravings after latch-keys and money o f her own earning, while hundreds of much-fathered and mothered girls would gladly change places with her. Miss Johnson has gone over to Catholicism as far as she can without actually being confirmed. She told Mrs. Kelley that she bad promised her mother not to do that during the latter's life-time. But she goes to confession--can you imagine that independent, hard-headed girl confessing?--and she goes regularly to mass. She has very little to do with anyone in the house except the Valerios, indeed she seems very much changed. Mrs. Kelley feels very badly over it. I cannot think of any new doings in the house since I wrote last. I have organized a dub of little Italian girls, who meet Thursday after noon after school and sew and play games, but it is not under my charge--two kindergarteners have it.BMy own work goes on just the same. Sometimes I get discouraged over it, for it ought to increase every year, but I cannot give more time to it than I do. I am trying 128 to do some work of my c Well 1 have not written a would rather hear about tl home people. a. Anna Freeman Davies was he b. Charlotte Perkins Stetson (18< argued in Women and Economics (18 be self-supporting. She had suffe. daughter and recovered only after c. Creighton Williams (1874-19 He became a lawyer and later pract her original spelling has been retai d. Lillian D. Wald (1867-1940) Nurses' Settlement) on N ew Yorl in the establishment o f public bea. those having to do with children circle, opened her house (which w e. Helena Stuart Dudley headed f. Although no longer as close i Hull House as she had once been settlement until the late 1920s. Sh than she had expected. g. The Hull-House Bulletin lists members. A lice regularly kept Ag dents. She was not infallible thought that Gerard Swope but .three years later they \ Addams and a Congregatio crick Dcknatel and Wilfrec encourage (even while hin rival" for Deknatcl's affcctic O f romances o f her own attachments to children is t lo give up a life that include with babies and children anc youngsters on a weekend ex she had not influenced a sin: particularly, but 1 shall mind meeting and speaking to Judge Landis, more than to any one person I can think of this minute. Once I had to dine with an old villain of a doctor whom I knew to be cruel, neglectful, lying and utterly callous to anything but the interests of the company he was working for. 7'haf is the only time 1can remember feeling a pharisaical desire to draw my skirts away from contamina tion, but 1shall feel with Judge Landis that i do not want even to look him in the eye and I shall hate to touch him. I have known some of his victims too well. Elisabeth Gilman is looking after the O 'Hare crusaders in Baltimore and trying to rope Clara in to help her.3 Clara and Margaret had a lovely and much-needed holiday down in Virginia and were motored all the way back by Frances Howard so they did not have the fatigue of diiving themselves. Margaret wrote that she spent all the first days sleeping or lying out in a sunny part of the beach. She looked so very badly after the school fuss that 1 was really shocked and 1 shall be much relieved when June is here and school dosing. Mr. Simpson writes that the freshet was way beyond the usual line and washed away the steps o f N orah's studio and all Peg's roses. She will have to choose a higher place for them. But worse than the flood was a wind which blew down my beloved crab apple tree, the one up under the elm against the terrace, a lovely thing which threw itself back against the hillside and was the center of the view from my attic window. I cannot bear to think it is gone. This is the end of a long day at the typewriter and my shoulder is aching and I must stop. With loads of love and with rememberings to Mrs. Bradford and the Lewis'. Yours ever Alice a. Elisabcd; Gilman, a Baltimore reformer and socialist, was a cofounder o f the Maryland Civil Liberties Committee. I n Novcmiur i Q22 Gerard Swope, who had recently become president of the General Electric Company, raised with Harvard's new School of Public Health (to which the industrial hygiene program had been transferred) the possibility of conducting a survey of health con ditions at G.E. Cecil K. Drinker, professor of physiology, and Roger 1. Lee. professor of hygiene school, took charge o f the k Swope into a large-scale stir The Administrative Board o Lee as the person who sboui plans independently with H, to make a preliminary invest that this survey would not t; plated by the school. Later tl whether the work could be i he only knew himself of D: vcrylugbcst regard. " The fc the conversation and promi negotiations than he had in included Hamilton, Lee, Ceci a chemical engineer who spt visited the G.E. plant in Sch week later Hamilton receiver investigation.26 68 To Clara Landsberg Dear Clara: The meek do inherit the c iIns letter from Gerard Swi back at once, for it is an imp to you and not to Margaret, worthy. It came yesterday a surprise he said at once "Ths that I had supposed it was a i have the inquiry put into its k upset when it appeared that was true, but that I had pla' "and I don't mind saying tha Now it's plain that Mr. Swoj business with what you do during your free time, it is for you to decide that yourself." Which shows a change of attitude as great as that of Dr. Lee who used not to know of my existence and now defers '-.i i and flatters and is most honeyed. Dr. Drinker told me that things t were to be quite different from now on, that Dr. Lee had put me on the executive committee and I would always be consulted. I said "Well, great is the power and glory of the General Electric Company" and he got red and stammered and then laughed and said "Well. Maybe. After all that's the way Roger Lee is." I have just come back from showing these letters to Dr. Lee. As soon as 1 came in his secretary was sent to hasten tea and toast an English muffin expressly for me, the things not being quite ready yet for a committee meeting which was to follow. Then he read the letters, laughed genially and said that that was what he had understood all along. I said that I did not at all understand it, that I could see no use of two investigations and that if Mr. Swope accepted our report of Schenectady and consented to the scheme of having us do all the other plants, it would surely be foolish for me to carry on a separate in vestigation. 1said, however, that the only answer I had made to Mr. Swope was that I should be glad to see him when he comes and that 1 was showing him, Dr. Lee, the letters as a protection to myself so that there could be no misunderstanding. At that he almost grovelled in his anxiety to reassure me that such a thing was impossible---Joe Aub having told me that Roger Lee thought I had deliberately double- crossed them. So here I am, with all kinds of kudos, with the whole thing back in my hands again, and with never a suspicion of fight or unpleasantness. If I had so planned it, instead of blindly blundering along it could not have come out better. 1 have gone over it so often in my mind and been tempted to do something to vindicate my rights, even to write Gerard and tell him please to see that I was given a proper share in the thing, but now I am so thankful that 1decided not to do one single thing which could appear underhanded to them and over-touchy to Gerard. Dr. Drinker told me this morning when he came up to beg me to try to get the bigger plan across, that if I went in on it during my free time 1 must of course ask a proper salary. I had made up my mind to do that b u t! was glad to have the suggestion come from him. ft really was nice to have a letter to show which bad this intimate, personal tone. At all the meetings Dr. Lee and Dr. Drinker would go on about their interviews with Gerard, of the manner of man he 264 seemed to be, of what one m said never a word, being Get intimacy. But to a man like 1 nobility. Whichever way it comes oi over and it is a relief, for the. Her letter in answer to mine deal about the many years sh< interest and evidently has quii rest is bitter and assumes that whom feelings do not count. I interested in all you write me news we ever get. I cannot find my letter from same as yours. Miss Addams h; visiting some o f the people I h: and kept the letter open to tel and quite free from asthma. 1 they sailed from Marseilles Ja course if I had gone I should in an even more unsatisfacto: status is entirely changed. It : Schenectady showed them tha with and both Drinkers confic three could go to the plant wit So it would have been a mista I am glad January is ending stop and I can catch up with month. Along in the middle oi and Bryn Mawr, all amountii bother. Bryn Mawr must pay ^$ 1 hen Sw ope met with a gre ruary 8, he requested that they sachusctts, but mentioned noth at dinner lie asked Alice Han possible, saying that "he was n program as Dr. Lee had put up to him, till he knew more about actual conditions." Swope insisted that Hamilton receive $25 per day plus expenses. She thought it was too much, but bowed to the "temptation to earn large gobs of money." (The income helped compensate for the severing ot her connection with the Department of Labor un der the Harding administration.) Swope never pursued the matter with the Harvard group, and Hamilton later rcporccd that "he docs not seem to have taken them seriously at all." Working as a consultant for G.E. for ten years, she found the company's health program ad mirable, but considered the work tame. Going from mercury mines in California to G.E. factories, she observed, was "like going from a strikers' mass meeting to the meeting of an infant class in Sunday School."27 Alice Hamilton was an active member of the advisory council of the Workers' Health Bureau (WHB), a New York City-based or ganization that from 1921 to 1928 sought to increase union interest in and responsibility for workers' health. Headed by Grace Burnham Vigasiy and Harriet Silverman, the WHB surveyed health conditions among workers, distributed literature about industrial diseases, and estab lished a workers' health clinic. Its affiliated union locals contributed a per capita membership fee, but these funds were never sufficient to support the ambitious program to which the directors aspired. Though she considered the WHB " violently prejudiced on the side of labor, so that it cannot see straight," Hamilton tried on several occasions to raise funds for the organization from the American Fund for Public Service, popularly known as the Garland Fund. Managed by a group of prominent radicals and liberals, among them Roger Baldwin, Eliz abeth Gurley Flynn, and Norman Thomas, the Garland Fund had as its top priorities the support of organized labor and farmers and the protection of the rights of minorities. Although the board did not act favorably on the request for funds in Hamilton's letter to Lewis Gannett of February 26, 1923, it did assist the WHB over the years, mainly with emergency funds to help cover the organization's deficits.28 266 6 9 To Lewis Gannett Dear Mr. Gannett: Last week I wTent to New Yo authority on industrial poisonii: animations made by the Work U nion/ Wc met at their office assembled in the 62nd Street A. found. I think it was the most dressed. There were somethin; Hayhurst said to me, it was a something that sanitarians have : arousing the interest of the worl lems. I want to urge very strongly t ers' Health Bureau with generos can get on its own feet. If it ha suppose you might think yoursi it, Mrs. Burnham and Miss Silv greatest usefulness and have don they showed me the installation that they had spent $7000 or $8( for $4000. The meeting the othei are in making contacts with the experience in this sort of work any class can be so vitally intere sacrifice an appreciable sum of it meeting was greatly helped out 1 trade could be linked up with tl The gist of the whole matter is to be distributed to unpopular c agree. What I want to impress Health Bureau lias a task at one unions in this country were est might ask them to stand on the against disease, but as you knov rights and they need their mom EXPLOR DANGERO ___ ' n e ALICE HA With by Barbi With Illustra tio NOR'lTEASTERN U t f c< jg&r;--; Vi- ' : S?V \ W vV i: '.W1 IS:- XVI I n 1923 Gerard Swope asked me to become medical consultant to the General Electric Company, of which he was then president, to visit all their plants and report on con ditions as I found them. This I did for the next ten years, and it was a new experience in many ways, for I was not deal ing with a dangerous trade -- the real dangers were only in certain spots in certain plants -- and I was dealing directly with the men in authority so that I was always sure my advice would be heeded. For the first lim e I found myself obliged to go into the less obvious and less direct hazards in industry, such as the underlying causes of fatigue, improper seating, dazzling lights, noise and vibration, lack of a nourishing midday meal and such, factors I had never paid much attention to when my mind was riveted on lead and mercury and nitrous fumes and benzol. It was also the first time that I had dealt with lame prouns of women workers. I had time too to look into systems of employee management, personnel work, medi cal examination for employment, so although the General Electric Company afforded me no opportunity to gain new knowledge about dangerous gases and fumes, it did give me a chance to learn a good deal that was new to me about the industrial would. Tire General Electric plants were not unionized then, though many of the employees belonged to craft unions. I found em ployee organizations in most of them, sometimes paternalistic, & 4 xf m i ' i:l I%! sometimes fairly inde] run by a man who ha talked with Gerard S1 would gladly let all I union, like Sidney Hil to was twenty or more the hundreds of unski years later when, th< reality, he had a vote joining the C.I.O. I tk The spirit I found ii two statements that rer me so much. At a mee the larger plants the cause of accidents in : said, "I think what cau of the man to do a go that he forgets to look ment came from Geran School of Public Healt' an industrial physician gerers. Mr. Swope said "Most men are pretty 1 to assume that you ar and in your relations same. I don't believe turned to me for confir experience workers are r of fear of losing their jo of deliberately cheating I had another job at t the spring of 1930' thro 4