Senator (Joseph) Lister Hill, 1894 - 1984

    Senator (Joseph) Lister Hill was one of America's foremost health statesmen and a leader of the nation's efforts to provide better health care for all its citizens. Senator Hill, a native of Montgomery, Alabama (December 29, 1894), was the son of Lilly Lyons Hill and physician Dr. Luther Leonidas Hill [junior] (1862-1946), who was the first American surgeon to successfully suture a human heart.  Dr. Hill had studied in England under Dr. Joseph Lister, who pioneered antiseptic surgery.  Dr. Hill named his son in honor of that physician.  Lister Hill received law degrees both from the University of Alabama and Columbia University.  At the age of 22, he was elected the President of the Montgomery Board of Education, reputedly the youngest person in the United States to hold such a post at that time.  He served in the U.S. Army during World War I (1917-1919) and in both the U.S. House (Alabama 2nd District, 1923-1938) and U.S. Senate (1938-1969). Senator Hill had one brother and two sisters (one of which was his twin.) He had 2 children with wife Henrietta McCormick:  Mrs. Charles (Henrietta) Hubbard and Luther Lister Hill.  Senator Hill died in Montgomery, Alabama on December 21, 1984 and was buried at Greenwood Cemetery in Montgomery.

     During his almost 46 years in Congress, Senator Hill championed over 60 pieces of health care legislation including the landmark Hill-Burton Hospital Survey & Construction Act of 1946.  The Hill-Burton Act initiated the concept of local-state-federal cost sharing of healthcare facilities particularly in lower income areas.   A survey at the time of his death (1984) estimated that there were more than 9,200 medical facilities which had been constructed or renovated with funds provided from this legislation.   In Alabama, all but two of 67 Alabama county hospitals were built with Hill-Burton funds.  Here in Birmingham, numerous facilities can trace their 'genealogy' back to Hill-Burton funds, including a number of buildings on the UAB campus:  UAB School of Dentistry building, Children's Hospital, Callahan Eye Foundation Hospital, Spain Rehabilitation Center, Smolian Psychiatric Clinic, north wing of University Hospital, and Hixson Hall.

     Senator Hill also authored or coauthored numerous pieces of legislation relating to libraries and medical research and co-sponsored the legislation that created both the National Institutes of Health and the National Library of Medicine.  During his time in Congress, Senator Hill was known as "the statesman of health." Other notable legislation Senator Hill authored or co-authored included:  the TVA Act (formerly known as the Norris-Hill Act), the Rural Telephone Act, the Rural Housing Act, the Vocational Education Act, the G.I. Bill of Rights for WWII and Korean veterans, the Rural Library Services Act, the Hill Amendment to the Transportation Act of 1940, National Defense Education Act of 1958, Hill-Harris Act of 1963, the International Health and Medical Research ("Health for Peace") Act, and the Senate resolution that paved the way for the creation of the United Nations.

      The UAB Medical Center Library was renamed the Lister Hill Library of the Health Sciences in tribute to him at the dedication ceremonies in 1971.

"One of the outgrowths of his legislative energies stands today in Alabama on the campus of the University of Alabama in Birmingham. One of his proudest achievements, the Lister Hill Library of Health Services, is providing students and physicians at this modern medical center with a storehouse of knowledge, challenges and limitless possibilities. The medical advances to which this facility makes a significant contribution, are a direct result of the work of one of Alabama's legislative giants, Joseph Lister Hill."--Tom Bevill, from the Tribute to Senator Lister Hill, U.S. Senate Congressional Record, 99th Cong. 1st Sess., 131 Cong Rec S 1101, REFERENCE: Vol. 131 No. 12.

Artwork depicting Senator Lister Hill in LHL

Bibliography

      Web:

         "Lister Hill and his influence."  By Carolyn E. Lipscomb.  J Med Libr Assoc, 2002 January; 90(1): 109-110.  URL:  http://www.pubmedcentral.gov/picrender.fcgi?action=stream&blobtype=pdf&artid=64768
 
       Biographical Directory of the United States Congress  URL: http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=H000598

       Alabama Academy of Honor did a short biography on Senator Hill when he was inducted into the Academy in 1969.  URL: http://www.archives.state.al.us/famous/academy/l_hill.html  (This account differs from other sources on some factual details.)

       An Online Art and Architecture Tour of the U.S. National Library of Medicine (Bust of Senator Lister Hill )
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/tour/listerhill.html

       Alabama Healthcare Hall of Fame : U.S. Senator Joseph Lister Hill.  URL: http://www.healthcarehof.org/honorees98/hill.html

       Print:
(Compiled from electronic databases and other reference sources. The first 3 references below were the only ones actually consulted for this brief account):

• Lister Hill: Statesman From the South. By Virginia Van der Veer Hamilton. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1987.
• U.S. Congress. Memorial Addresses for Lister Hill. 99th Cong., 1st sess., 1985. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1985.  [Numerous tributes and statements dating from February 4, - June 25, 1985.]
• Who's Who in Alabama. Compiled and edited by Guy A. Matlock.  Birmingham, Ala.: DuBose Pub. Co., 1940, vol. 1, p. 68 (Joseph Lister Hill); p. 213 (Luther Leonidas Hill).

• Biographical Directory: Fellows and Members of the American Psychiatric Association. 1977 edition. New York: R.R. Bowker Co., 1977.
• Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774-1989. The Continental Congress, September 5, 1774 to October 21, 1788 and the Congress of the United States from the first through the one hundredth Congresses, March 4, 1789, to January 3, 1989, inclusive. Bicentennial Edition. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1989. Biographies begin on page 507.
• The Cambridge Biographical Encyclopedia. Second edition. Edited by David Crystal. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
• The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography. Edited by John S. Bowman. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
• Current Biography Yearbook. "1943." New York: H.W. Wilson Co., 1943.
• Current Biography Yearbook. "1985." New York: H.W. Wilson, Co., 1985, p. 467.
• The Encyclopedia of Southern History. Edited by David C. Roller and Robert W. Twyman. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1979.
• Lister Hill papers, 1921-1968, Hoole Special Collections Library, Tuscaloosa, AL.  Phone:  (205)348-1699. 801 linear feet. Subject files, correspondence, reports, and other materials by, to, and about this Alabama senator.,
• Obituary: Lister Hill. The New York Times Biographical Service, v. 15 (December 1984), p. 1617.
• Obituary: Lister Hill. Current Biography, v. 46 (February 1985), p. 43-44.
• Obituary: Lister Hill. Newsweek, v. 104 (December 31, 1984), p. 68.
• Obituary: Lister Hill. New York Times (Early City Edition), (December 22, 1984), p. 29. [includes portrait.]
• Political Profiles. "The Eisenhower Years." Edited by Eleanora W. Schoenebaum. New York: Facts on File, 1977.
• Political Profiles. "The Johnson Years." Edited by Nelson Lichtenstein. New York: Facts on File, 1976.
• Political Profiles. "The Kennedy Years." Edited by Nelson Lichtenstein. New York: Facts on File, 1976.
• Political Profiles. "The Truman Years." Edited by Eleanora W. Schoenebaum. New York: Facts on File, 1978.
• Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives.  Volume 1, 1981-1985. Edited by Kenneth T. Jackson, et al.  New York: Scribner, 1988. pp. 384-386.
• "Senator Lister Hill, 1894-1984."  M.M. Cummings. Bull Med Libr Assoc, 1985 Jul; 73(3): 317-18.
• "Senator Lister Hill: statesman for health and patron of medical libraries."  M.M. Cummings.  Ala J Med Sci, 1972 Jan; 9(1): 4-10.
• Who's Who in American Politics. Eighth edition, 1981-1982. New York: R.R. Bowker, 1981. Use the Index to locate biographies.