A Mighty Force: Dr. Elizabeth Hayes and Her War for Public Health

In the last half of 1945, news of the war’s end and aftermath shared space with reports of a battle on the home front, led by a woman. She was Elizabeth O. Hayes, MD, doctor for a coal company that owned the town of Force, PA, where sewage contaminated the drinking waters, and ambulances sank into muddy unpaved roads while corrupt managers, ensconced in Manhattan high-rises, refused to make improvements.

When Hayes resigned to protest intolerable living conditions, 350 miners followed her in...