Pioneering Role

Mary Hamilton joined the New York Police Department’s Missing Person’s Bureau in 1917 as a volunteer. She was one of the earliest policewomen in New York City, although she only enjoyed secondary status, mainly being responsible for cases that fit her socially prescribed role as a care-giver and included women and children.

In 1918, when Ellen O’Grady was promoted to deputy commissioner of police, the women’s movement in policing received a great boost. In 1924 Hamilton became the city’s first female police field supervisor when she was appointed director of the the recently created Women’s Police Bureau.

In January 1926 she resigned, believing that policewomen could never match their male counterparts in the field and therefore should stay relegated to preventative and protective tasks dealing with children and women. She published several articles on policing and penned her autobiography,


The Policewoman: Her Services and Ideals

(1924), which chronicled the development of the policewoman’s movement.