The era of employer-provided health insurance began in the U.S. during World War II, after the Stabilization Act of 1942 limited employers’ ability to raise wages. Millions of men joined the armed services or were drafted. As a result, companies began offering benefits in place of higher wages to compete for scarce workers. Decades earlier the coal industry was one of the first to offer medical benefits to its employees in the form of a company doctor. One of the most famous coal company doctors was James Tate Mason, who moved from Virginia to the Pacific Northwest in 1907.
Mason was 25 years old with $50 in his pocket when he arrived in Seattle. He hired on with Pacific Coast Coal Co. and became their company doctor in Black Diamond where he remained until 1909. That year he was appointed as county jail physician, so moved to Seattle. Four years later, Dr. Mason was elected King County Coroner. In that capacity, Mason conducted the Coroner’s inquest into the Ravensdale mine explosion on Nov. 16, 1915, which claimed the lives of 31 coal miners in one of the worst tragedies in Washington mining history. In association with Dr. John Blackford and Dr. Thomas Dowling, Mason formed the Virginia Mason Hospital in 1920, naming it after his daughter. A six-story building was constructed at the corner of Terry Avenue and Spring Street in an area of Seattle later called “Pill Hill.” Today, the Virginia Mason medical complex spreads over four city blocks including that original purchase.
Dr. Mason, left, is shown on June 14, 1935 with Dr. James McLester at the 86th annual convention of the American Medical Association in Atlantic City. Mason was chosen President-elect of the AMA and was to be inducted into that position the following year. Weeks before he was to assume the presidency, he suffered an arterial blood clot which landed Dr. Mason in the hospital he founded. In June 1936, Mason listened on the radio to his own inauguration proceedings from a hospital room in Seattle. Days after the induction, Dr. Mason passed away on June 20, 1936 at age 54. This photo comes courtesy of JoAnne Matsumura, an Issaquah historian.
