Alice Hamilton: The Making of a Feminist-Pragmatist Rhetor

238 Pages·2015·0.59 MB·English

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Communication Theses Department of Communication
1-12-2006
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Vicki J. McCoy
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McCoy, Vicki J., "Alice Hamilton: The Making of a Feminist-Pragmatist Rhetor." Thesis, Georgia State
University, 2006.
doi: https://doi.org/10.57709/1061271
This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of Communication at ScholarWorks @
Georgia State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Communication Theses by an authorized
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DR. ALICE HAMILTON: THE MAKING OF A FEMINIST-PRAGMATIST RHETOR

by

VICKI J. MCCOY

Under the Direction of James F. Darsey

ABSTRACT

Dr. Alice Hamilton (1869-1970), the leading American figure in industrial medicine
during the early to mid-1900s, left behind a body of rhetoric that is important in the
history of American feminist discourse and American public address. Her discourse is the
exemplary of feminist-pragmatist rhetoric, a genre of cross-gender communication
developed by New Women associated with Hull House and the University of Chicago
between 1892 and 1918. Hamilton’s rhetoric illuminates a key event in the history of the
American rhetorical tradition—the emergence of the modern woman from her late-
Victorian beginnings through her Progressive self-transformation. This study is
approached as a rhetorical biography. It tracks Hamilton’s evolution from “reticent
scientist” to outspoken feminist-pragmatist by examining family, educational, peer and
social influences on her development; and through critical analysis of her speeches,
technical writing, books, and popular and specialty magazine articles over a 36-year
period, from 1907 to 1943.
INDEX WORDS: Alice Hamilton, feminist-pragmatist rhetoric, Progressive Era,
social reform, industrial poisons, Hull House, feminist oratory.
DR. ALICE HAMILTON; THE MAKING OF A FEMINIST-PRAGMATIST RHETOR

By

VICKI J. MCCOY

A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of

Master of Arts

In the College of Arts and Sciences

Georgia State University

2005
Copyright by
Vicki J. McCoy
2005
DR. ALICE HAMILTON; THE MAKING OF A FEMINIST-PRAGMATIST RHETOR

by

VICKI J. MCCOY

Major Professor: James Darsey
Committee: David Cheshier
Mary Stuckey

Electronic Version Approved:

Office of Graduate Studies
College of Arts and Sciences
Georgia State University
December 2005
iv
This thesis is dedicated to
the courageous women of Hull House,
whose lives continue to inspire me.
v
Table of Contents

Introduction……………………………………………………………………… 1

The “New Woman”: A Neglected Figure in the History of American
Public Address…………………………………………………………... 1

Alice Hamilton: Exemplar of the Feminist-Pragmatist New Woman… 4

Chapter 1 - Alice Hamilton: A New Woman’s Story…………………………… 8

A “Rooted and Grounded” Freedom: Late-Victorian Childhood and
Early Education………………………………………………………… 8

Studying Medicine at the Turn of the Century at Home and Abroad…. 15

American Feminism Gives Birth to a New Woman................................. 26

Chapter 2 – Hull House and the Chicago School of Pragmatism……………….. 35

Alice Hamilton’s Introduction to Jane Addams and Hull House……... 35

Hull House and Feminist-Pragmatism………………………………… 39

Chapter 3 – The Emergence of the Citizen-Orator………………………………. 44

1897-1907: Early Experiences with the Rhetoric of Reform………….. 44

1908-1938: Exploring the Dangerous Trades………………………….. 59

1915-1919: World War I as Transformation…………………………... 66

Answering the Call of the Rhetorical Situation………………………... 73

Feminist-Pragmatist Rhetoric as a Genre Study………………………. 80

Chapter 4 – In Her Own Voice: A Generic Analysis of the Rhetoric of
Alice Hamilton……………………………………………………… 87

Balance…………………………………………………………………... 87

Transcendence………………………………………………………….... 106
vi
Multiple Logics…………………………………………………………….. 131

Perfectionism………………………………………………………………. 160

Balance, Transcendence, Multiple Logics, and Perfectionism in
Constellation……………………………………………………………….. 178

Chapter 5 – (Conclusion) Listening to Alice Hamilton: Implications of
Feminist-Pragmatist Rhetoric for American Public Address………….. 191

Rediscovering Alice Hamilton, a Significant but Neglected Turn-of-the-
Century Rhetor……………………………………………………………… 193

Hamilton as Exemplar of the Feminist-Pragmatist Genre………………… 205

Learning from Alice Hamilton……………………………………………... 207

References………………………………………………………………………........ 214
1
Introduction
The “New Woman”: A Neglected Figure in the History of American Public Address
In 1984, when Karlyn Kohrs Campbell (1989a, 1989b) published her ground-
breaking, critical study, Man Cannot Speak For Her, her stated purpose was to contribute
to the creation of a history of women’s rhetoric, specifically the rhetoric of the early
woman’s rights movement in the United States. Campbell pointed out in the introduction
to her work that, unlike men in Western society, whose public persuasion has been studied
since the ancient Greeks, women have no parallel rhetorical history. She attributed this
lack to the historical suppression of women’s voices by powerful cultural forces, in
evidence as early as the eighth century BC in Homer’s Odyssey, and to the devaluing and
marginalizing of women’s rhetoric in modern times. The suppression was long successful
because of the weight of the cultural authority behind it, including even the Scriptures,
where the Apostle Paul exhorts women to keep silent. This devaluing and marginalizing
have resulted in a failure to preserve the words of many early female rhetors who defied
tradition and spoke publicly on moral and public policy issues, and, for those rhetorical
acts by women that have survived, a failure to treat these works as an essential part of the
tradition of American public address.
Twenty years after the publication of Campbell’s study, and hundreds of
thousands of words of rhetorical criticism later, it appears that there is still much work
left to do in building a female rhetorical history and incorporating that tradition into
existing histories of American public discourse. Judith Allen (2003) complains that in
2
texts on Progressive history, for example, feminism is either scarcely mentioned or its
contribution to Progressive political philosophy is marginalized. A revival of interest in
the rhetoric of Progressive Era activist and feminist-pragmatist Jane Addams (see
Burgchardt, 2003; Elshtain, 2002a, 2002b), Jennifer Borda’s (2003) essay on the
Progressive identity of the woman’s suffrage movement, and Allen’s (2003) own piece
on the non-fiction writing and the lectures of Progressive feminist Charlotte Perkins
Gilman are all encouraging signs that more stones are being added in the creation of the
monument to the female rhetorical tradition that Campbell envisioned and that women
deserve.
The Progressive Era is a particularly rich place to look for new stones for that
monument. It was during this period, from about 1870 to the 1920s, that a “New Woman”
emerged from what might at first glance appear to be the dying embers of the first wave
of feminism in America. The New Woman was a member of the privileged first
generation of “college” women. She pioneered in the professions and social reform, and
she claimed her right to a career outside the home and to a public voice (Sicherman,
1984; Smith-Rosenberg, 1985). In fact, the challenges of life in the large, over-crowded,
ethnically diverse cities that sprang up at the turn-of-the-century in the wake of the
Industrial Revolution in America provided not only employment opportunities for the
reform-minded New Woman, but also the exigencies for her to take part in the
reinvigoration of the public sphere that characterized the Progressive Era (Hogan, 2003).
As Hogan (2003) explains, “Virtually all Progressives shared an abiding concern with
public opinion and its role in the democratic process,” and “feared that, in an increasingly
complex world, powerful special interests had supplanted the ‘voice of the people.’”