![]() ![]() ![]() “We needed no ‘outsiders’,” Hamilton wrote, “having our own games, our own traditions and rules of conduct.” The one outside influence on the family was religion: what Alice called “sober” Presbyterianism. The outside world had little influence on the extended Hamilton family, which included eleven cousins living in several houses on the property bequeathed by their grandfather. Edith, the eldest, became famous in her fifties as a classicist and author of The Greek Way and Mythology. None married and in later years they often traveled and lived together. The second of four sisters born within six years (there was also a younger brother), the Hamilton girls pursued educations and professional goals in the face of declining family fortunes. From her earliest days, Alice Hamilton’s deepest attachment was to her family. She grew up on a large estate acquired by her grandfather, a Scots-Irish immigrant who had invested in land and railroads. Her genteel and isolated upbringing clashed with the woman who challenged contemporary definitions of femininity and who moved in the traditionally male circles of the scientific laboratory, the factory and the university.īorn in New York City in 1869, Alice Hamilton was raised in Fort Wayne, Indiana, in a privileged and cultured family aware of its place in American society. Nothing in Alice Hamilton’s early life suggested her future as a pioneer and social reformer. ![]()
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