U2401cc

Great Americans

Dr. Alice Hamilton - Physician, Research Scientist & Author

Chris Calle Stamp Designer Signature

Collins Cover Announcement 

ALICE HAMILTON, M.D.

This is an "entire" hand-painted cachet that deals with industrial safety which was a major part of Doctor Hamilton's life, Tt shows a mining operation with early wooded coal cars used in the shafts and also a factory scene. Completing the cachet is a color portrait of a young and attractive Alice.

In 1893 she earned a Medical Degree from the University of Michigan. She then worked at Chicago's Hull House where she observed first-hand the problems of the working class in industrialized America. In 1911 she published a study about the prevalence of lead poisoning in industry and this lead to improvements in many factories. Her subsequent work included dangers of other manufacturing poisons, the ill effects of using air and jack hammers, and the perils of monoxide emissions in steel mills.

In 1919 Alice Hamilton became the first woman appointed to the Harvard faculty and helped start a program in industrial safety and hygiene. In 1928 she was appointed to a League of Nations Health Commission. After a long and active life, she passed away in 1970 at the age of 101. The fifty-five cent stamp has the Day of Issue postmark from Boston. This is another issue in the "Great Americans" series. Alice Hamilton. Item #U2401. $11.25.