Eleonore Hutzel

Eleonore Hutzel was an American nurse and social worker in Detroit, Michigan, remembered for her work on behalf of the health and welfare of women and children. She trained in nursing at Harper Hospital and in obstetrics at Women's Hospital, worked as a visiting nurse, and then studied social service in Chicago. In 1915 she became the first director of social services at Detroit's Women's Hospital, serving unwed mothers and their families, and she backed a program to supply breast milk to children who needed it. In 1922 she became the first woman to lead the Detroit Police Department's Women's Division, and in 1933 she published The Policewoman's Handbook. From 1939 she served as a trustee of the hospital, which was renamed Hutzel Women's Hospital in 1964, and the Eleonore Hutzel Recovery Center in Detroit also bears her name. She entered the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame in 1999. Sources differ on her birth and death years by one year.