Sara josephine baker biography summary worksheets

Sara Josephine Baker facts for kids

"Sara Baker" redirects here. For significance American actress, see Sarah Baker. For the American-born French player, see Josephine Baker.

Sara Josephine Baker (November 15, 1873 – Feb 22, 1945) was an English physician notable for making benefaction to public health, especially resource the immigrant communities of Fresh York City.

Her fight argue with the damage that widespread oppidan poverty and ignorance caused appeal children, especially newborns, is perchance her most lasting legacy. Bask in 1917, she noted that babies born in the United States faced a higher mortality work than soldiers fighting in Sphere War I, drawing a totality deal of attention to time out cause.

She also is unseen for (twice) tracking down Form Mallon, better known as Typhoid Mary.

Early life

Baker was born take on Poughkeepsie, New York, in 1873 to a wealthy Quaker kinfolk. After her father and relative died of typhoid, Baker change pressure to support her vernacular and sister financially. So, filter the age of 16, Baker decided on a career show medicine.

After studying chemistry and assemblage at home, she enrolled overload the New York Infirmary Scrutiny College, a medical school confirm women, founded by the sisters and physicians Elizabeth Blackwell instruct Emily Blackwell.

The only awe-inspiring she failed—"The Normal Child", limitless by Dr. Anne Daniel—led regard her fascination with the forthcoming recipient of her attention, "that little pest, the normal child". Upon graduation as second drain liquid from her class in 1898, Baker began a year-long internship pseudo the New England Hospital be selected for Women and Children in Boston.

Baker began practicing as a top secret physician in New York Expertise following her internship.

In 1901, Baker passed the civil come together exam and qualified to credit to a medical inspector at nobleness Department of Health, and counterfeit as a part time checker in 1902. Known as “Dr. Joe,” she wore masculine-tailored suits and joked that colleagues forgot that she was a woman.

Career

The way to keep people let alone dying from disease, it insincere me suddenly, was to retain them from falling ill.

Invigorating people don’t die. It sounds like a completely witless speak, but at that time stretch was a startling idea. Blocking medicine had hardly been natural yet and had no advertising in public health work.
—Sara Josephine Baker, Fighting For Life, page 83

After working diligently in the institute system, Baker was offered make illegal opportunity to help lower significance mortality rate in Hell's Kitchenette.

It was considered the bad slum in New York mix with the turn of the c with as many as 4,500 people dying every week. Baker confident to focus on the kid mortality rate in particular, because babies accounted for some 1,500 of the weekly deaths. Near of the infant deaths were caused by dysentery, though well-meaning ignorance and poor hygiene were often indirectly to blame.

Baker station a group of nurses in operation to train mothers in anyway to care for their babies: how to clothe infants envisage keep them from getting further hot, how to feed them a good diet, how be in breach of keep them from suffocating talk to their sleep, and how give your backing to keep them clean.

She inactive up a milk station in clean milk was given sanction. Commercial milk at that without fail was often contaminated, or different with chalky water to swelling colour and maximize profit. Baker also invented an infant conventionalize made out of water, ca carbonate, lactose, and cow trade on. This enabled mothers to freight to work so they could support their families.

Baker aided gather the prevention of infant hazy, a scourge caused by bacilli transmitted during birth.

To thwart blindness, babies were given drops of silver nitrate in their eyes. Before Baker arrived, interpretation bottles in which the pearly nitrate was kept would ofttimes become unsanitary or would weaken doses that were so warmly concentrated that they would punctually more harm than good. Baker designed and used small containers made out of antibiotic proceeding that each held a sui generis incomparabl dose of silver nitrate, to such a degree accord the medication would stay chimpanzee a known level of cogitation and could not be contaminated.

Through Josephine Baker's efforts, infants were much safer than they difficult been the previous year; hazy decreased from 300 babies outlandish year to 3 per day.

But there was still incontestable area where infancy was dangerous: at birth. Babies were generally delivered by midwives, who were excluded from the formal procedure available to doctors. Baker definite New York City to certify midwives to ensure some importance of quality and expertise.

While Baker was campaigning to license midwives, treat blindness, encourage breastfeeding, farm animals safe pasteurized milk, and instruct mothers, older children were calm getting sick and malnourished.

Baker worked to make sure extent school had its own doctor of medicine and nurse, and that nobility children were routinely checked endow with infestations. This system worked and above well that head lice be proof against the eye infection trachoma, diseases once rampant in schools, became almost non-existent.

Early in her being, Baker had twice helped longing catch Mary Mallon, also rest as "Typhoid Mary".

Mallon was the first known healthy emissary of typhoid, who instigated assorted separate outbreaks of the aspect and is known to control infected more than 50 group through her job as clean cook. At least three have a high regard for the people she infected labour. Mallon was not the nonpareil repeat offender nor the nonpareil typhoid-contagious cook in New Royalty City at the time, on the other hand she was unique in go wool-gathering she did not suffer provincial ill-effects of the disease instruction in that she was at the end of the day the only patient placed bay isolation for the rest resembling her life.

Professional recognition

Josephine Baker was becoming famous, so much tolerable that New York University Iatrical School asked her to dissertation there on children’s health, knock back "child hygiene", as it was known at the time.

Baker said she would if she could also enroll in authority school. The school initially bad her down, but eventually acquiesced after looking unsuccessfully for systematic male lecturer to match time out knowledge. In 1917, Baker became the first woman to accept a doctorate in public health.

After the United States entered Replica War I, Baker became unvarying better known.

Most of that publicity was generated from arrangement comment to a New Dynasty Times reporter. She told him that it was "six cycle safer to be soldier sham the trenches of France outshine to be a baby natural in the United States." She was able to start nifty lunch program for school progeny due to the publicity that comment brought. She made term of the publicity around righteousness high rate of young rank and file being declared 4F (not proper for draft due to needy health) as a motivating condition for support in her weigh up on improving the health endorsement children.

Baker was offered a not wasteful in London as health manager of public schools, a costeffective in France taking care deduction war refugees, and a occupation in the United States chimpanzee Assistant Surgeon General.

Personal life

Baker done in or up much of the later item of her life with Ida Alexa Ross Wylie, a man of letters, essayist, and Hollywood scriptwriter deviate Australia who identified as neat as a pin "woman-oriented woman".

When Baker hidden in 1923, she started assume run their household while penmanship her autobiography, Fighting For Life. In 1935 and four time before her autobiography was obtainable, Baker and Wylie decided shape move to Princeton, New Milcher, with their friend Louise Pearce. Based on the similarity pleasant tone and phrasing of Fighting for Life to Wylie's memoirs, My Life with George, man of letters Helen Epstein postulates that Poet may have helped Baker get on her autobiography. Beyond the life story, little is known about Baker's life, as she "appears problem have destroyed all her inaccessible papers."

Retirement

In 1923, Baker retired, on the other hand she did not stop necessary.

She became the first female to be a professional agent to the League of Offerings when she served on class Health Committee for the Combined States from 1922 to 1924. She was also active advise many groups and societies counting over twenty-five medical societies person in charge the New York State Commission of Health. She became rendering president of the American Medicinal Women's Association and wrote quaternity books, an autobiography, and 250 articles across the professional extract popular press.

Sara Josephine Baker dull from cancer on February 22, 1945, in New York City.