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Summary by Pat Hoertdoerfer
Children, Family and Intergenerational Programs Director, UUA
Boston, MA
- Dr. Eliot was one of the great pioneers of maternal and child health.
For more than 50 years she was a leader in the development of health
services for mothers and children.
- She was born into a prominent family in Dorchester, MA, graduated
from Radcliff College, and then Johns Hopkins Medical School in 1918.
She taught pediatrics at Yale University from 1921 to 1935.
- As Division Director (1924-34) and then Chief of the US Children's
Bureau (1951-56), she helped establish government programs of social
medicine. She collaborated in the drafting of the children's sections
of the Social Security Act.
- She was the only woman to sign the Constitution of the World Health
Organization, ensuring that child(ren) health would be one of its major
responsibilities.
- Dr. Eliot emphasized social pediatrics focusing on prevention as well
as treatment of diseases of children. She became the model social doctor
for her peers and the next generation of medical students.
- During the shameful period of McCarthyism, Dr. Eliot had the courage
of her moral convictions and intervened in the defense of her staff
members who were wrongfully harassed.
- She seemed to have unbounded energy and made her staff (and herself)
work hard. But she encouraged her staff and made them feel that they
were in a partnership with her in a cause, that could not be laid aside.
- She was concerned for children in all countries of the world. She
worked for them in the great international organizations: the League
of Nations, United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration
(UNRRA), and the World Health Organization. She surveyed the situation
of children around the world for UNICEF and trained maternal and child
health personnel in Asia and Africa.
- In the United States she used her vision and vigor in the US Children’s
Bureau, at Yale Medical School, Harvard School of Public Health, and
the MA Committee for Children and Youth, as well as many governmental
and non-governmental agencies/committees.
- She is remembered as one of the great pioneers of maternal and child
health, one of the early advocates of a national health program, and
one who worked for the welfare of children, believing that child health
and child welfare are inseparable.
Source: Notable American Unitarians, www.harvardsquarelibrary.org
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