Early Life | Alice Hamilton (1869-1970)

“There were eleven cousins living in the same big place. We needed no "outsiders” having our own games, our own traditions and rules of conduct. Eight of us played together, being near enough of an age. In those days children invented their own games, grownups looked after health, studies, manners and morals, but amusement was not their responsibility. We played long-continued games, Robin Hood and his band, the Knights 26 Exploring the Dangerous Trades of the Round Table, the siege of Troy, with the carriage house as Troy and our woodhouse the Greek camp. Once we were out of doors we were free, except for a few prohibitions which we always observed, for we were obedient. We were also truthful; that is, we told nothing but the truth. We did not always tell the whole truth, for we argued that the less the impulsive and incalculable grownups knew, the better for them and us. Thus, when Allen's wooden sword cut my forehead I ran to the pump and struck the place against the iron handle so that I could truthfully say that the handle had hit me, and not risk the chance of having tournaments forbidden. We lived in our own world, a child's world which we left only briefly to enter the far less real one of the grownups.

[…]

Of science we had not even a smattering, beyond what we could gather from my father's favorite Max Muller. Yet in a way we were trained in habits of scientific approach. We were not allowed to make a statement which could be challenged unless we were prepared to defend it. One of my father's favorite quotations was, "Be ready always to give a reason of the hope that is in you." When he could not answer a question he would send us to the Encyclopedia Britannica, to look it up. Of course the articles were often beyond our comprehension. When I told him that my cousin Allen was studying physics in his Boston school and I wanted to study it too, he said, "It is all in the encyclopedia”. And it was, but not in a shape for a girl of fourteen.”

Excerpted from Exploring The Dangerous Trades , the autobiography of Alice Hamilton, M.D. Online at archive.org

Four Hamilton sisters: Edith, Alice, Margaret and Norah, ca. 1890-1895. C. G. Agrell, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Alice Hamilton (February 27, 1869– September 22, 1970) was an American physician, research scientist, and author who is best known as a leading expert in the field of occupational health and a pioneer in the field of industrial toxicology. Source Wikipedia

Thumbnail Image : Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons