Obituary

Alice Hanson Cook, professor emeritus at the Cornell School of Industrial and Labor Relations and one of the first scholars to study the plight of working women, died Feb. 7 at her home in Ithaca. She was 94.

Cook was among the first scholars to write on and research issues related to working women, such as equal pay, comparable worth and maternity leave. Her studies often suggested ways public policy could support working mothers.

In 1972 she proposed a Maternal Bill of Rights to compensate women for loss of employment opportunities and job development during their child-rearing years.

Her early career was as a social worker in the 1920s. During the 1930s and 1940s, she served as a YWCA secretary and as a labor leader and educator for various unions, including Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America. She was chief of the adult education section of the U.S. Office of Cultural Affairs in Frankfort-am-Main, Germany, from 1950-52, before joining the Cornell faculty in 1954.

From 1969 to 1971, Cook served as Cornell's first ombudsman.

After her retirement from Cornell in 1972, when she was named an emeritus professor, Cook spent the next 26 years writing and studying about the world of working women.

Even in her 80s, Cook kept an active research schedule. She examined the workday life of dual-income couples in her chapter "Can Work Requirements Accommodate to the Needs of Dual-Earner Families?" in Dual-Earner Families: International Perspectives (Sage Publications, 1992).

Cook was a member of countless organizations and Cornell committees devoted to improving the working world for women; she was a founding member of the Advisory Committee on the Status of Women.

Shortly before her death, Cook completed her autobiography, A Lifetime in Labor, which will be published this spring by the Feminist Press, New York.

Born in Alexandria, Va., in 1903, Cook earned a bachelor's degree from Northwestern University in 1924. She did graduate work at the University of Frankfort and Berlin University in Germany from 1928 to 1931.

She is survived by two sons, Philip Cook of Buffalo, N.Y., and Thomas Bernstein of New York City; two brothers, Fred Hanson of Sun Lakes, Ariz., Evanston, Ill., and Cedar River, Mich., and Theodore Hanson of Honolulu; several grandchildren and a great-grandchild.

A memorial service will be planned for the spring.