This two-part article looks at women's attempts to receive compensation for their work-related illnesses in the first sixty years of the twentieth century. Women pressed claims through narrow legal remedies in the tort and workers' compensation systems for a small part of their massive burden of work-related illnesses. Part 1 examines the network of women advocates around occupational disease compensation; women's experience under the employers' liability and workers' compensation systems; women's most frequently compensated illnesses under workers' compensation, dermatitis and systemic poisoning; and notable litigation episodes involving phosphorus and radium poisoning. Part 11 of this article, to be published in the next issue, focuses on compensation for tuberculosis, asbestosis, beryllium disease, and illnesses with a mental component.