As a dedicated and determined public health professional, Morton S. Hilbert worked towards the promotion and protection of environmental health. His most well-known accomplishment is the co-founding of Earth Day. With the U.S. Public Health Service, Hilbert organized the Human Ecology Symposium in 1968. This forum helped to inform students about grave threats to environmental health in the 1960s and 70s and ultimately it inspired them to take action. In 1970 their efforts, along with a federal proclamation from U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson, culminated in the observance of the first Earth Day.
In 1940, Hilbert graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with a bachelor's degree in civil engineering and began his career as a public health official and field engineer in Michigan. Shortly thereafter, Hilbert enrolled in the University of Michigan School of Public Health and in 1946 he received his masters degree. Hilbert then held a variety of positions and worked both in the United States and abroad. Through his consulting business, Hilbert worked in many different locations including the Virgin Islands, Thailand, and Egypt.
Throughout his career, Hilbert also served as president of a variety of state and local public health organizations such as the Michigan Public Health Association and the Engineering Society of Detroit. He was elected president of the American Public Health Association in 1976 and focused his tenure on promoting the importance of prevention, rather than corrective action, in managing environmental health.
In 1961, Morton Hilbert returned to the University of Michigan School of Public Health teaching a variety of courses. In 1968, as full professor, he was named chair of the newly created Department of Environmental Health and Industrial Health. Here his focus was in providing students with the management and planning skills necessary to implement successful environmental health projects. In1986, Hilbert retired from the University of Michigan; he continued working as a private consultant and served as the Director of the European Office for the National Sanitation Foundation (NSF) from 1986 until about 1991. He died at his home in Bellevue, Washington in 1998.
From the guide to the Morton S. Hilbert papers, 1943-1999, (Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan)
