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A biography of Harvard’s first female faculty member—a pioneer in public health and worker safety. Born and raised in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Alice Hamilton graduated from medical school in 1893, and after completing internships at hospitals in Minneapolis and Boston, she rejected private practice and began dedicating herself to public health. Focusing on the investigation of the health and safety measures—or rather lack thereof—in the nation’s factories and mines during the second decade of the twentieth century, her discoveries led to factory and mine level-initiated reforms, and to city, state, and federal reform legislation. It also led to a greater recognition in the nation’s u...
An anthology of period documents that illustrate important facets of Americans' changing relationship with nature.
PEN/Hemingway Award Winner: An “enthralling” novel of a woman trapped within a tragically dysfunctional family (Entertainment Weekly). From the New York Times–bestselling author of The Excellent Lombards and A Map of the World, this is “an extraordinary story of a family’s disintegration [that] will be compared to Jane Smiley’s A Thousand Acres” (People). It follows Ruth Grey, a young woman in a tiny Illinois farm town, who has lost her father to World War II, and constantly faces her unhappy mother’s wrath—when she isn’t being ignored in favor of her math-prodigy brother. As Ruth navigates her lonely life, she strives to find happiness and pleasure where she can, but the...
Understanding and encouraging the development of good leaders are so important that schools of business administration, public administration, public policy, and organizational development teach courses in leadership. Within the public administration literature, scholars have discussed the value of studying outstanding individuals who have been uniquely effective in fulfilling their formal duties, as well as ethical in leading their organizations. Public Service Exemplars is the first book to highlight the decision-making styles of American public servants who serve as models of excellence in public service. While the roles they held, eras in which they served, formal training for the job, p...
In a weak moment, I have written a book. Margaret Mitchell This book is a multilayered creation that touches on a wide array of topics, many of them drawn from personal experiences. Indeed, you the lucky reader will be blessed with enough material for at least three books within one cover. Why would I want to write such a multi-themed book? It wasnt my original intention. Maybe Ive learned an important lesson and wont do so next time. Like many older folks, I wanted to share what I have learned to be true and useful and couldnt seem to stay with a single topic. Ive lived long enough to confirm an important realization: the gleanings from a well-lived life are at least as important as knowled...
Alice Hamilton (1869-1970), a pioneer in the study of diseases of the workplace, a founder of industrial toxicology in the United States, and Harvard's first woman professor, led a long and interesting life. Always a consummate professional, she was also a prominent social reformer whose interest in the environmental causes of disease and in promoting equitable living conditions developed during her years as a resident at Jane Addams's Hull-House. This legendary figure now comes to life in an integrated work of biography and letters that reveals the personal as well as the professional woman. In documenting Hamilton's evolution from a childhood of privilege to a life of social advocacy, the ...
Biology textbooks and books on the history of science generally give a limited picture of the roles women have played in the growth and development of the biological sciences, mentioning primarily the Nobel laureates. This book provides a definitive archival collection of essays on a larger group of women, profiling both their work and their lives. The volume includes 65 representative women from different countries and eras, and from as many branches of biological investigation as possible. In addition to biographical information and an evaluation of the woman's career and significance, each entry provides a full bibliographic listing of works by and about the subject. The volume includes e...
From pre-Columbian times to the environmental justice movements of the present, women and men frequently responded to the environment and environmental issues in profoundly different ways. Although both environmental history and women's history are flourishing fields, explorations of the synergy produced by the interplay between environment and sex, sexuality, and gender are just beginning. Offering more than biographies of great women in environmental history, Beyond Nature's Housekeepers examines the intersections that shaped women's unique environmental concerns and activism and that framed the way the larger culture responded. Women featured include Native Americans, colonists, enslaved field workers, pioneers, homemakers, municipal housekeepers, immigrants, hunters, nature writers, soil conservationists, scientists, migrant laborers, nuclear protestors, and environmental justice activists. As women, they fared, thought, and acted in ways complicated by social, political, and economic norms, as well as issues of sexuality and childbearing. Nancy C. Unger reveals how women have played a unique role, for better and sometimes for worse, in the shaping of the American environment.
Perhaps the most important woman in 20th century America, Eleanor Roosevelt fascinates scholar and layperson alike. This exciting encyclopedia brings together basic information illuminating her complex career and making the interaction between her private and public lives accessible to scholars, students, and the general public. Written by scholars—including the most eminent Eleanor Roosevelt and New Deal scholars—journalists, and those who knew her, the 200 plus entries in this book provide easy access to material showing how Eleanor Roosevelt changed the First Lady's role in politics, widened opportunities for women, became a liberal leader during the Cold War era, and served as a guiding spirit at the United Nations. A unique resource, the book provides an introduction to American history through the vantage point of a woman who both represented her times and moved beyond them. Illuminating her multifaceted career, life, and relationships, The Eleanor Roosevelt Encyclopedia offers the reader an unparalleled opportunity to examine the complicated and fascinating life of Eleanor Roosevelt.