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Fighting for Life
An “engaging and . . . thought-provoking” memoir of battling public health crises in early 20th-century New York City—from the pioneering female physician and children’s health advocate who ‘caught’ Typhoid Mary ( The New York Times )
New York’s Lower East Side was said to be the most densely populated square mile on earth in the 1890s. Health inspectors called the neighborhood “the suicide ward.” Diarrhea epidemics raged each summer, killing thousands of children. Sweatshop babies with smallpox and typhus dozed in garment heaps destined for fashionable shops. Desperate mothers paced the streets to soothe their feverish children and white mourning cloths hung from every building. A third of the children living there died before their fifth birthday.
By 1911, the child death rate had fallen sharply and The New York Times hailed the city as the healthiest on earth. In this witty and highly personal autobiography, public health crusader Dr. S. Josephine Baker explains how this transformation was achieved. By the time she retired in 1923, Baker was famous worldwide for saving the lives of 90,000 children. The programs she developed, many still in use today, have saved the lives of millions more. She fought for women’s suffrage, toured Russia in the 1930s, and captured “Typhoid” Mary Mallon, twice. She was also an astute observer of her times, and Fighting for Life is one of the most honest, compassionate memoirs of American medicine ever written.
New York’s Lower East Side was said to be the most densely populated square mile on earth in the 1890s. Health inspectors called the neighborhood “the suicide ward.” Diarrhea epidemics raged each summer, killing thousands of children. Sweatshop babies with smallpox and typhus dozed in garment heaps destined for fashionable shops. Desperate mothers paced the streets to soothe their feverish children and white mourning cloths hung from every building. A third of the children living there died before their fifth birthday.
By 1911, the child death rate had fallen sharply and The New York Times hailed the city as the healthiest on earth. In this witty and highly personal autobiography, public health crusader Dr. S. Josephine Baker explains how this transformation was achieved. By the time she retired in 1923, Baker was famous worldwide for saving the lives of 90,000 children. The programs she developed, many still in use today, have saved the lives of millions more. She fought for women’s suffrage, toured Russia in the 1930s, and captured “Typhoid” Mary Mallon, twice. She was also an astute observer of her times, and Fighting for Life is one of the most honest, compassionate memoirs of American medicine ever written.
304 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1939
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About the author
S. Josephine Baker
17 books3 followersSara Josephine Baker (November 15, 1873 – February 22, 1945) was an American physician notable for making contributions to public health, especially in New York City.
(from Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 62 reviews
September 24, 2019
This New England doctor actually got up and told the committee: "We oppose this bill because, if you are going to save the lives of all these women and children at public expense, what inducement will there be for young men to study medicine?" Senator Sheppard, the chairman, stiffened and leaned forward: "Perhaps I didn't understand you correctly," he said; "you surely don't mean that you want women and children to die unnecessarily or live in constant danger of sickness so there will be something for young doctors to do?" "Why not?" said the New England doctor, who did at least have the courage to admit the issue; "That's the will of God, isn't it?"In terms of NYRB Classics, this work definitely earns the classy cover emblematic of the publishing imprint, unlike many of its fellow entries. However, it's necessary to remember just how much went largely unquestioned in one's elected officials way back when in the pre-Internet days, and S. Josephine Baker's queerness and appreciation of her more famous namesake didn't stop her from revealing herself as a white supremacist within the last ten pages of this memoir of hers. Not something I hoped for, considering how much trouble I went through to acquire a copy of this work, but not entirely unexpected. I deeply appreciate the pictures she painted of forthrightness and certain aspects of late 19th/early 20th c history, but all her moaning and groaning about the lack of progress (white) women made after winning the right to vote is hilarious when considering her abject fear of intersectionality in any form. All in all, Butler would likely have saved even more lives if she could ensured, as is largely inadvertently done in the European countries she lovingly references, that her surveyed population was near entirely white. A false note in an otherwise splendid record, but it is a necessary warning to any reader interested in this sort of material. Baker played an original part in the history of the development of both the US government and its responsibility to its citizens, but that doesn't mean she couldn't be a self-righteous bigot.
"See here," I said; "you are really crying before you are hurt. I quite realize that you may not like the idea of working under me as a woman. But isn't there another side of this question? I do not know whether I am going to like working with you.["]Starting this work off was rather surreal, as Baker apparently had a glorious childhood smack dab in the middle of the Gilded Age, when corrupt business exigencies were swiftly laying the groundwork for the scenes of plague and despair that the author would be confronted with during her rounds in the early stages of her medical career. The most interesting part about this introductory material was when she was finally thrust out of financial reassurance and had to face the idea of being the unorthodox breadwinner for her family, especially in how her situation compared to the fictional rendition found in Doctor Zay. Once Baker came sufficiently into her own, she became interesting in her own right, and it was rather thrilling to read about her exploits in carving great swathes through bureaucratic procedure and government policy in her crusade for infant and adolescent health. Of course, it was only sheer luck that the lack of oversight beyond the Tamany Hall figure didn't result in any kind of genocidal-coded programs on her part, as her own admittance to having a mind for management doesn't bode well in conjunction with her fear of "backward—but populous—countries" and "the dominance of the Orient or some unthought-of race." A mixed bag, but too useful in certain respects to completely disregard, although a grain of salt may be rather insufficient while reading certain sections.
The mere fact that in Russia every pregnant woman is given ample time off from her work both before and after her confinement and that she not only receives full pay for this time but also has the best care available during her entire pregnancy and confinement, all without cost, means an untold amount to the veteran welfare-worker.All in all, this wasn't the work I hoped to love, but it definitely belongs in my hypothetical collection of works that I plant o some day incorporate in my permanent library, with some caveats, of course. I still respect Baker, one queer woman to another, but one can tell that she fit in all too well with the status quo after a time, and any dreams and aspirations she had beyond curing the (white) children and getting the (white) woman vote were likely ground out in the face of being allowed to indulge in various state sanctioned holier than thou-isms. I likely wouldn't much get along with her in the flesh, but I am glad to be able to make use of her experiences for one argument or another, which is honestly the most one can get out of most historical personages. Anyway, with this, I'm glad to have officially finished my final 2018 personal reading challenge, and true to form, I'm already scouting out publication dates for next year's reading plans. On that final note, I leave you with an invitation to join in on the fun here.
It may seem like a cold-blooded thing to say, but someone ought to point out that the World War was a backhanded break for children—a break originating in the world's dismay at the appalling waste of human life, both at the front and behind the lines....When a nation is fighting a war or preparing for another, and the European nations have been doing one of those two things ever since 1914, it must look to its future supplies of cannon fodder. Particularly when supplies run short and unproductive militarism begins to lower the standard of living, rulers and governments begin to think hard about how best to conserve future citizens.
April 25, 2024
(4.5 stars.) Much to my surprise, it would appear that the genre of “novelistic memoirs by sassy lesbian Gilded Age public health officials” is something that I needed in my life. Suffice it to say that I did not expect this book to be so engrossing on every level.
September 24, 2013
NYRB has published this memoir of Josephine Baker, an American doctor who got sidelined into public health and made a phenomenal difference in child health in New York City. She worked with poor immigrant babies, mothers, and school children, and radically changed the approach to child health by focusing on prevention rather than treatment.
Baker was a radical pioneer, although she disclaims the role. She lost her father just as she reached college age, and instead of attending Vassar as planned entered a medical school in New York City that had been started by Elizabeth Blackwell and her sister to train women physicians. Baker also quietly states that she lived with another woman doctor her whole life, leaving the 1939 reader to draw conclusions. She ingeniously inveigled male doctors to work for her when she was appointed head of the child health division of the city health department, and wangled funding from the city and private foundations time after time. She repeatedly emphasizes her practical, experimental approach to solving problems, working with the population she had rather than wishing for a perfect, rational, obedient clientele.
Toward the end of the book Baker describes her role in the suffrage movement, and a trip she took to the Soviet Union in the mid-thirties. There are also wonderful anecdotes throughout, including visits from Lord Astor and Theodore Roosevelt.
In all cases she is funny, forthright, and honest. No sentimental attitudes toward the poor--they have their faults. An even-handed assessment of the Soviet Union. Scathing treatment of political concern for children as often just insuring there will be enough canon fodder for the next war. And yet she is not at all sure that there is a higher purpose in having children, in the end. She thinks she would have been just as happy doing an extremely good job of managing any big operation with a challenging assignment.
There are many insights and conclusions that are just as true and pointed now as when she wrote.
[on speaking with the commissioner of health regarding closing schools during a WWI measles epidemic] 'And as I was leaving the room, he casually added, "By the way, I am changing the name of German measles. Hereafter it will be known as 'Liberty measles'." And it did bear that extraordinary title for the duration of the war. War psychosis is a fearful and wonderful disrupter of horse sense.'
'But any large body of people grouped by common interests will never behave wiht a tenth the intelligence that its individudal members will show in their daily lives. That is true of nations, street-corner gangs, prayer-meetings--and large groups of doctors.'
Baker was a radical pioneer, although she disclaims the role. She lost her father just as she reached college age, and instead of attending Vassar as planned entered a medical school in New York City that had been started by Elizabeth Blackwell and her sister to train women physicians. Baker also quietly states that she lived with another woman doctor her whole life, leaving the 1939 reader to draw conclusions. She ingeniously inveigled male doctors to work for her when she was appointed head of the child health division of the city health department, and wangled funding from the city and private foundations time after time. She repeatedly emphasizes her practical, experimental approach to solving problems, working with the population she had rather than wishing for a perfect, rational, obedient clientele.
Toward the end of the book Baker describes her role in the suffrage movement, and a trip she took to the Soviet Union in the mid-thirties. There are also wonderful anecdotes throughout, including visits from Lord Astor and Theodore Roosevelt.
In all cases she is funny, forthright, and honest. No sentimental attitudes toward the poor--they have their faults. An even-handed assessment of the Soviet Union. Scathing treatment of political concern for children as often just insuring there will be enough canon fodder for the next war. And yet she is not at all sure that there is a higher purpose in having children, in the end. She thinks she would have been just as happy doing an extremely good job of managing any big operation with a challenging assignment.
There are many insights and conclusions that are just as true and pointed now as when she wrote.
[on speaking with the commissioner of health regarding closing schools during a WWI measles epidemic] 'And as I was leaving the room, he casually added, "By the way, I am changing the name of German measles. Hereafter it will be known as 'Liberty measles'." And it did bear that extraordinary title for the duration of the war. War psychosis is a fearful and wonderful disrupter of horse sense.'
'But any large body of people grouped by common interests will never behave wiht a tenth the intelligence that its individudal members will show in their daily lives. That is true of nations, street-corner gangs, prayer-meetings--and large groups of doctors.'
June 29, 2016
This is one of the best memoirs I've ever read. I read about this book after watching the tv show "The Knick." If you are in medicine, public health, a New Yorker or interested in learning about a fascinating woman....this book is for you! Dr.Baker was a pioneer and a leader....an amazing woman who is responsible for promoting midwives, baby health, school nurses and so much more that we often take for granted. She achieved so much during a time when men blocked her at every turn. She even chased and tracked down Typhoid Mary to prevent her from infecting the public! A lot of what she writes still rings true today.
July 21, 2021
A fascinating account of public health work, by a pioneering woman doctor. I enjoyed reading about her joyful childhood in the 1880s, before her father's death left her with a mother and sister to support. The sections on her suffrage work, and an extended visit to the Soviet Union in the 1930s were unexpected and equally fascinating. Reading about constant epidemics of disease feel uncomfortably familiar, including the Influenza Pandemic of 1919-1920.
Want to read
October 11, 2013I confess, I was inspired to read this autobiography of an inspirational woman who transformed American public health because of this Hark, a vagrant comic.
April 17, 2021
This was an unexpected gem of a read. Dr. S. Josephine Baker entered the medical profession out of practical considerations, worked in private practice in New York City for a time, and eventually found her way to the Department of Health in 1902. Always drawn to treating patients in the poorest, most neglected neighborhoods she soon realized that treatment was a Sisyphean task with negligible results and turned her attention toward disease prevention. Particularly, disease prevention in infants and children.
She helped develop and then headed the Bureau of Child Hygiene in New York City which achieved astonishing results in a very short time using methods designed and implemented by Baker. Her impact on public health is immeasurable. And, as the writer of the introduction suggests, the only reason her name is better known even today is because the changes she put in place seem so obvious and common sensical as to have always been so.
I came to this book as part of my personal quest to find out why we've suffered cultural amnesia about the influenza pandemic of 1918. This seminal event of mass suffering and death impacted millions of families around the globe, disrupting whole populations and creating score upon score of orphans and yet is rarely discussed. Knowing that Dr. Baker worked in public health in a city hard hit by the flu, I hoped there might be some mention of it.
There were about two pages dedicated to the "wartime pandemic" dealing primarily with her decision to keep schools in NYC open. It wasn't much, however it did provide some insight. I had already assumed the pandemic arriving in the middle of a global slaughter dulled the response to more death. Now I believe that the simple fact of all the varieties of communicable diseases being always a looming threat compounded with the limited capacity to treat them effectively, made the fact of one being particularly bad for a season of only moderate interest.
It's precisely because many people have stopped dying in large numbers, in some parts of the world, of what are now preventable diseases that this interruption in the norm is of such stunning significance.
The book itself is fantastically engaging. Baker is really funny, not the least bit dry, definitely an iconoclast even by modern standards, and can tell a damn good story well. You'll have to wade through some bigotry that is insensitive by today's standards but was probably incredibly gracious by the standards of the day. There are a couple instances of sharp bias for western civilization that are uncomfortable, but very few. There are far more appeals for socialized medicine than I expected, frank discussions of why abortion should be free and legal, and even a very funny story about her atheism. Her atheism is a thing she alludes to more than she frankly states but it would be difficult to see any other interpretation of this story.
The sad part of this autobiography is the chapter where she discusses her hopes for the future of medicine: the socialized medicine for Americans that has still not come to fruition; the improvement of access to maternal prenatal care for all women; the defocusing on specializations for a return to the general practitioner who spends time with patients and develops an understanding of them rather than sending them for a zillion labs and diagnostics and only becoming familiar with reading those results. It's astonishing to realize how long some people have been seeking the things that seem to be even farther away from us now than they were in 1939.
She helped develop and then headed the Bureau of Child Hygiene in New York City which achieved astonishing results in a very short time using methods designed and implemented by Baker. Her impact on public health is immeasurable. And, as the writer of the introduction suggests, the only reason her name is better known even today is because the changes she put in place seem so obvious and common sensical as to have always been so.
I came to this book as part of my personal quest to find out why we've suffered cultural amnesia about the influenza pandemic of 1918. This seminal event of mass suffering and death impacted millions of families around the globe, disrupting whole populations and creating score upon score of orphans and yet is rarely discussed. Knowing that Dr. Baker worked in public health in a city hard hit by the flu, I hoped there might be some mention of it.
There were about two pages dedicated to the "wartime pandemic" dealing primarily with her decision to keep schools in NYC open. It wasn't much, however it did provide some insight. I had already assumed the pandemic arriving in the middle of a global slaughter dulled the response to more death. Now I believe that the simple fact of all the varieties of communicable diseases being always a looming threat compounded with the limited capacity to treat them effectively, made the fact of one being particularly bad for a season of only moderate interest.
It's precisely because many people have stopped dying in large numbers, in some parts of the world, of what are now preventable diseases that this interruption in the norm is of such stunning significance.
The book itself is fantastically engaging. Baker is really funny, not the least bit dry, definitely an iconoclast even by modern standards, and can tell a damn good story well. You'll have to wade through some bigotry that is insensitive by today's standards but was probably incredibly gracious by the standards of the day. There are a couple instances of sharp bias for western civilization that are uncomfortable, but very few. There are far more appeals for socialized medicine than I expected, frank discussions of why abortion should be free and legal, and even a very funny story about her atheism. Her atheism is a thing she alludes to more than she frankly states but it would be difficult to see any other interpretation of this story.
The sad part of this autobiography is the chapter where she discusses her hopes for the future of medicine: the socialized medicine for Americans that has still not come to fruition; the improvement of access to maternal prenatal care for all women; the defocusing on specializations for a return to the general practitioner who spends time with patients and develops an understanding of them rather than sending them for a zillion labs and diagnostics and only becoming familiar with reading those results. It's astonishing to realize how long some people have been seeking the things that seem to be even farther away from us now than they were in 1939.
October 13, 2013
An excellent memoir by a founder of child hygiene practices that brought about a stunning drop in early 20th-century child mortalities rates, often using methods of child care and nutrition that are taken for granted as "natural" today. Baker was also prominent in the Woman's Suffrage Movement as it moved the country toward granting women the right to vote--with the hopes that further positive changes could be brought about (namely, establishing child labor laws) once that voting bloc was established. Alas, she was disappointed that the movement lost its momentum once voting rights were granted. All in all, this memoir is cast in the voice of a friendly yet no-nonsense role model, deeply aware as the point guard for women in leadership positions everywhere: she was once of the nation's first women to graduate from medical school, to earn a doctorate in public health, to lead a government office, etc.
July 23, 2014
By the time she retired in 1923, Dr. Baker's public health programs had saved the lives of 90,000 NYC children. The bald facts of her life make for an interesting narrative, what with her Poughkeepsie childhood, her (two) captures of Typhoid Mary, her day with Teddy Roosevelt, and her 1930s tour of the Soviet Union. But the woman could write, too. She wasn't shy about her accomplishments, and her creativity and mettle are in full force on every page.
January 11, 2016
Everyone should know about Dr. Baker, one of the first women doctors who saved thousands of babies through her child health programs and established practices that are so standard now that it's hard to believe that someone initiated them. I loved her great practical spirit and her views were so modern. We could use her leadership now.
March 10, 2023
I loved learning about Sarah Baker and her amazing contributions to public health. Her writing has a sense of humor that is great.
September 19, 2019
Quite simply, I adored this book. It’s one of those reads where people need to be careful not to walk by you, because you’ll put the book down and make them listen to a blow-by-blow account of everything you just learned in the last few pages.
This is the autobiography of Dr. S. Josephine Baker, the first director of the New York City Bureau of Child Hygiene who is credited with saving at least 90,000 lives because of her work in the public health space. Obviously as a public health nerd who works in government, I’m into that. But it’s more than a story about public health: it’s a look back at history (she served from 1908-1925, earned her medical license when women had just only started becoming doctors, fought for women’s suffrage, and saw both world wars) and how nothing about humans has changed. We still suck in the same ways. We still rule in the same ways. We still worry about the same things! – she has a section at the end hypothesizing why the birth rate is falling, and lo and behold, it’s because new families don’t have enough money and rich families are uncertain about bringing kids into a world with such uncertain futures before them.
Baker tells her story with an eye for patterns across years, with deep experience – hands on, trial-and-error, get-in-the-thick-of-it-not-just-read-about-it experience – and pragmatism. Events that would have bowled me over had I experienced them, she simply takes in stride. Even if you aren’t in public health, this is a great look back at life at the turn of the 1900’s. Don’t take my word for it – Anthony Bourdain himself praised this book, his endorsement is right on the back!
I can’t finish this review without leaving a long list of all the amazing things Baker talked about. That’s below, but one final note: I picked this book up on a whim, for $4, off a bargain table at a book store. Don’t make my mistake. Go get this book intentionally.
• Baker used randomized control trials (even if she didn’t call them that) to test her theories – when she started working, it was generally accepted that preventing disease was impossible and it could only be dealt with one people were already sick.
• We have school nurses because of a program Baker started!
• Baker witnessed a doctor testifying to Congress arguing against appropriations for money for preventative health because it was saving too many people and young men wouldn’t want to study to be doctors anymore. She described a petition some doctors had sent to the mayor of New York, asking her department to be shut down because her measures were cutting into their profits (no more illness), and described it as one of the best compliments to her work she ever received.
• A master of change management, Baker was working, over and over, with city residents who didn’t trust her expertise and maybe didn’t even speak English. Rather than let it stop her work and shout about her expertise, she found ways to earn that trust.
• Next time someone shouts to you about “design thinking” and “understanding the end user,” remember Baker did it first – and she did it by working in the field and seeing the need. She and her department straight up invented half the things they needed, and they did it out of necessity.
• Foresaw the debate of today around C-sections/natural births – she thought midwives (if certified and trained! – which wasn’t true when she started) and non-medical interventions for childbirth likely had better outcomes.
• Cautions against relying too much on fancy technological tests for diagnosis, and not enough on listening to the patient and performing a physical examination.
• Writing from the late 1930’s, Baker discusses how equal women in medicine are compared to back in the early 1900’s, when she went to medical school. It’s interesting to contrast that to today, when we consider the late 1930’s to still be a terrible time professionally for women. Baker observes how women can usually only get good jobs in strong economy when there’s a shortage – in bad economies, they’re the first to lose out.
• Baker was deeply sorrowful upon realizing what really started getting government’s to care about children’s health was the world wars, as they realized they needed population to draft for future wars.
This is the autobiography of Dr. S. Josephine Baker, the first director of the New York City Bureau of Child Hygiene who is credited with saving at least 90,000 lives because of her work in the public health space. Obviously as a public health nerd who works in government, I’m into that. But it’s more than a story about public health: it’s a look back at history (she served from 1908-1925, earned her medical license when women had just only started becoming doctors, fought for women’s suffrage, and saw both world wars) and how nothing about humans has changed. We still suck in the same ways. We still rule in the same ways. We still worry about the same things! – she has a section at the end hypothesizing why the birth rate is falling, and lo and behold, it’s because new families don’t have enough money and rich families are uncertain about bringing kids into a world with such uncertain futures before them.
Baker tells her story with an eye for patterns across years, with deep experience – hands on, trial-and-error, get-in-the-thick-of-it-not-just-read-about-it experience – and pragmatism. Events that would have bowled me over had I experienced them, she simply takes in stride. Even if you aren’t in public health, this is a great look back at life at the turn of the 1900’s. Don’t take my word for it – Anthony Bourdain himself praised this book, his endorsement is right on the back!
I can’t finish this review without leaving a long list of all the amazing things Baker talked about. That’s below, but one final note: I picked this book up on a whim, for $4, off a bargain table at a book store. Don’t make my mistake. Go get this book intentionally.
• Baker used randomized control trials (even if she didn’t call them that) to test her theories – when she started working, it was generally accepted that preventing disease was impossible and it could only be dealt with one people were already sick.
• We have school nurses because of a program Baker started!
• Baker witnessed a doctor testifying to Congress arguing against appropriations for money for preventative health because it was saving too many people and young men wouldn’t want to study to be doctors anymore. She described a petition some doctors had sent to the mayor of New York, asking her department to be shut down because her measures were cutting into their profits (no more illness), and described it as one of the best compliments to her work she ever received.
• A master of change management, Baker was working, over and over, with city residents who didn’t trust her expertise and maybe didn’t even speak English. Rather than let it stop her work and shout about her expertise, she found ways to earn that trust.
• Next time someone shouts to you about “design thinking” and “understanding the end user,” remember Baker did it first – and she did it by working in the field and seeing the need. She and her department straight up invented half the things they needed, and they did it out of necessity.
• Foresaw the debate of today around C-sections/natural births – she thought midwives (if certified and trained! – which wasn’t true when she started) and non-medical interventions for childbirth likely had better outcomes.
• Cautions against relying too much on fancy technological tests for diagnosis, and not enough on listening to the patient and performing a physical examination.
• Writing from the late 1930’s, Baker discusses how equal women in medicine are compared to back in the early 1900’s, when she went to medical school. It’s interesting to contrast that to today, when we consider the late 1930’s to still be a terrible time professionally for women. Baker observes how women can usually only get good jobs in strong economy when there’s a shortage – in bad economies, they’re the first to lose out.
• Baker was deeply sorrowful upon realizing what really started getting government’s to care about children’s health was the world wars, as they realized they needed population to draft for future wars.
May 24, 2015
This is the fascinating autobiography of Dr. Josephine Baker, one of the first women to become a doctor in America, a trailblazer in the field of public health and children's welfare, and an all-around awesome person.
Dr. Baker became famous for her work with poor immigrant children in early 1900s New York. Rather than try to futilely treat all the thousands of children who got sick with communicable diseases in the slums each year, Dr. Baker decided to try a different approach: teaching mothers how to properly feed and clean their babies so that they wouldn't get sick in the first place. Incredible as it may seem, the concept of preventive medicine (keeping well people well) didn't exist yet, and Dr. Baker had a hard time convincing the city to fund health care for people who weren't even sick. But her efforts paid off. By teaching mothers about seemingly simple things that most of us take for granted (don't give your baby beer, don't let them play in the gutter, give them regular baths, make sure they drink pasteurized milk, etc.), Dr. Baker was able to save the lives of tens of thousands of children who otherwise would have died from diseases like dysentery and helped to permanently lower the infant mortality rate in New York City.
She also invented an infant formula that was one of the only safe feeding options for non-breastfeeding mothers, routed out all the unqualified midwives in the city, which helped decrease deaths of women during childbirth, and created a school-based health system that still exists today in which nurses were placed in public schools. She also encouraged mothers to interact with their babies, which sounds incredible today, but which was not a common practice at the time. It was believed that too much "mothering" would stunt the child's psychological growth and discourage independence. Dr. Baker showed that, on the contrary, children need love to develop normally. Once again, her greatest breakthroughs were things that we now consider common sense but which really shook up the status quo during her time.
As though that weren't impressive enough, Dr. Baker did all of this while grappling with corrupt Tammany Hall bosses, facing down sexism and corruption in the department of health, and countering the objections of traditional doctors who argued that if Dr. Baker went around preventing people from getting sick, the doctors would be out of a job (!).
Dr. Baker was also a major player in the fight for women's right to vote. She visited the Soviet Union and commented on the state of their medical system, met Teddy Roosevelt and gave him a personal tour of her work in the city, helped catch Typhoid Mary, and lived an unconventional life (driving a car, living with her female partner/not getting married, wearing a man's suit and tie rather than a dress) at a time when it was socially dangerous to do so.
Dr. Baker's autobiogrphy is funny, direct, and endlessly interesting. She was not only a great doctor, but really thought about and understood the role of medicine in the world and what it means to be a doctor. She describes her life and career against the backdrop of World War I, the Spanish flu epidemic, changing immigration laws, the Soviet Union, the women's suffrage movement, the polio epidemic, the invention of the automobile, and changing standards in science and medicine. The end of the book even contains her reflections about the feasibility and desirability of state-sponsored health care, which is still relevant 100 years later in light of the debates about the Affordable Care Act. It's a fascinating story about an impressive woman who lived during an exciting time. It's a shame that Dr. Baker isn't more well-known and studied by children in school. I think her story has much more to offer than the "women heroes" that typically crop up in school, like Amelia Earhart or Martha Washington. Dr. Baker was humble, fearless, skeptical, stubborn, hard-working, and compassionate, many of the qualities I admire most. She helped advance the cause not just of women in medicine, but women in any kind of professional career, and for that reason alone, more people should learn about her.
Dr. Baker became famous for her work with poor immigrant children in early 1900s New York. Rather than try to futilely treat all the thousands of children who got sick with communicable diseases in the slums each year, Dr. Baker decided to try a different approach: teaching mothers how to properly feed and clean their babies so that they wouldn't get sick in the first place. Incredible as it may seem, the concept of preventive medicine (keeping well people well) didn't exist yet, and Dr. Baker had a hard time convincing the city to fund health care for people who weren't even sick. But her efforts paid off. By teaching mothers about seemingly simple things that most of us take for granted (don't give your baby beer, don't let them play in the gutter, give them regular baths, make sure they drink pasteurized milk, etc.), Dr. Baker was able to save the lives of tens of thousands of children who otherwise would have died from diseases like dysentery and helped to permanently lower the infant mortality rate in New York City.
She also invented an infant formula that was one of the only safe feeding options for non-breastfeeding mothers, routed out all the unqualified midwives in the city, which helped decrease deaths of women during childbirth, and created a school-based health system that still exists today in which nurses were placed in public schools. She also encouraged mothers to interact with their babies, which sounds incredible today, but which was not a common practice at the time. It was believed that too much "mothering" would stunt the child's psychological growth and discourage independence. Dr. Baker showed that, on the contrary, children need love to develop normally. Once again, her greatest breakthroughs were things that we now consider common sense but which really shook up the status quo during her time.
As though that weren't impressive enough, Dr. Baker did all of this while grappling with corrupt Tammany Hall bosses, facing down sexism and corruption in the department of health, and countering the objections of traditional doctors who argued that if Dr. Baker went around preventing people from getting sick, the doctors would be out of a job (!).
Dr. Baker was also a major player in the fight for women's right to vote. She visited the Soviet Union and commented on the state of their medical system, met Teddy Roosevelt and gave him a personal tour of her work in the city, helped catch Typhoid Mary, and lived an unconventional life (driving a car, living with her female partner/not getting married, wearing a man's suit and tie rather than a dress) at a time when it was socially dangerous to do so.
Dr. Baker's autobiogrphy is funny, direct, and endlessly interesting. She was not only a great doctor, but really thought about and understood the role of medicine in the world and what it means to be a doctor. She describes her life and career against the backdrop of World War I, the Spanish flu epidemic, changing immigration laws, the Soviet Union, the women's suffrage movement, the polio epidemic, the invention of the automobile, and changing standards in science and medicine. The end of the book even contains her reflections about the feasibility and desirability of state-sponsored health care, which is still relevant 100 years later in light of the debates about the Affordable Care Act. It's a fascinating story about an impressive woman who lived during an exciting time. It's a shame that Dr. Baker isn't more well-known and studied by children in school. I think her story has much more to offer than the "women heroes" that typically crop up in school, like Amelia Earhart or Martha Washington. Dr. Baker was humble, fearless, skeptical, stubborn, hard-working, and compassionate, many of the qualities I admire most. She helped advance the cause not just of women in medicine, but women in any kind of professional career, and for that reason alone, more people should learn about her.
December 29, 2015
I think the best word to describe Fighting for Life is enlightening. Sara Josephine Baker is one of those influential historical figures who was responsible for creating (or contributing to) so many things that we consider normative now. Having nurses in public schools? Using state medicine to prevent illnesses? Articulating that children's health care needs to begin at the prenatal stage? We have Dr. Baker to thank for these and many other innovations. Oh, and she also tracked down Typhoid Mary, was a suffragist, and actively campaigned to eliminate child labor.
I think one of my favorite aspects of Baker's autobiography is her down-to-earth attitude towards such an impressive life's work. The tone of Fighting for Life is inherently reflective of Baker's essential pragmatism. When she was first getting involved in child health care reform, she tackled the issues with clear-headed intelligence, and then had the patience and determination to see her ideas through. The story doesn't read like a fairy tale or series of charmed events. There's no glamorous turning point in her saga - no romantic conviction driving her work. She believed in making life better for children, and set out to do just that without much fanfare. It's the relentless determination that lead to her successes. I like that the work was enough for her. It's great to be reminded that a noble pursuit doesn't require maudlin digressions or justifications.
Fighting for Life accomplishes several things simultaneously: while it gives an overview of how public health was revolutionized at the turn of the century, it also offers an interesting perspective on the various milestones of women's rights in America - the founding of Vassar, women being admitted into medical colleges, getting the right to vote, etc. Baker's own influence on women's rights is impressive - her persistent challenges to patriarchy are a delight to read about, especially considering her markedly un-dramatic approach. Time and again, it seems like she simply states the obvious and then waits for others to see it from her point of view or make total fools of themselves. In my opinion, that pattern depicts genuine self-possessed power in action.
Considering Fighting for Life was written in 1939, it feels very relevant to contemporary discourse on public medicine and health. There are also dated and archaic moments, though. Even when I disagreed with Baker's perspective on something, I couldn't help but admire her. As an example of a pioneer and activist, she's a formidable presence.
I think one of my favorite aspects of Baker's autobiography is her down-to-earth attitude towards such an impressive life's work. The tone of Fighting for Life is inherently reflective of Baker's essential pragmatism. When she was first getting involved in child health care reform, she tackled the issues with clear-headed intelligence, and then had the patience and determination to see her ideas through. The story doesn't read like a fairy tale or series of charmed events. There's no glamorous turning point in her saga - no romantic conviction driving her work. She believed in making life better for children, and set out to do just that without much fanfare. It's the relentless determination that lead to her successes. I like that the work was enough for her. It's great to be reminded that a noble pursuit doesn't require maudlin digressions or justifications.
Fighting for Life accomplishes several things simultaneously: while it gives an overview of how public health was revolutionized at the turn of the century, it also offers an interesting perspective on the various milestones of women's rights in America - the founding of Vassar, women being admitted into medical colleges, getting the right to vote, etc. Baker's own influence on women's rights is impressive - her persistent challenges to patriarchy are a delight to read about, especially considering her markedly un-dramatic approach. Time and again, it seems like she simply states the obvious and then waits for others to see it from her point of view or make total fools of themselves. In my opinion, that pattern depicts genuine self-possessed power in action.
Considering Fighting for Life was written in 1939, it feels very relevant to contemporary discourse on public medicine and health. There are also dated and archaic moments, though. Even when I disagreed with Baker's perspective on something, I couldn't help but admire her. As an example of a pioneer and activist, she's a formidable presence.
July 2, 2017
First of all, Sara Josephine Baker lived an incredible life. Second of all, she has a totally relatable way of sharing her story.
Originally published in 1939, this autobiography tells firsthand the story of a woman doctor (at a time when that brought strange looks) who engineered the saving of thousands of infant lives in New York City slums at the turn of the century and became the first woman to earn a Doctor of Public Health through the program at NYU (because, when she was asked to lecture in the program that only accepted men, she refused to do so unless she could also enroll for the degree, opening the door for other women to enroll as well).
I originally read an excerpted version of her memoir (in Written by Herself: Autobiographies of American Women <-- highly recommend). I enjoyed the excerpted version so much, that I almost immediately ordered her book.
The beginning takes a little while to get into, but soon enough, you're following her to New York as she enrolls in medical school and later sets up her own practice with a fellow woman doctor and then gets involved with preventive public health and on and on it goes, as she steps into different roles and situations and seeks to fill the gaps she finds.
Baker has a no-nonsense style to her writing. Don't come to this book seeking lyrical prose or a literary masterpiece. Her writing flows, as if she's sitting and talking with you, recounting her life. I learned a ton -- about her, her work, and the world as it was back then (think, women's suffrage, "little mothers," Soviet Russia -- oh, and baby care).
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and recommend it to anyone who enjoys learning, values the work of women in the world, and is curious about history.
Originally published in 1939, this autobiography tells firsthand the story of a woman doctor (at a time when that brought strange looks) who engineered the saving of thousands of infant lives in New York City slums at the turn of the century and became the first woman to earn a Doctor of Public Health through the program at NYU (because, when she was asked to lecture in the program that only accepted men, she refused to do so unless she could also enroll for the degree, opening the door for other women to enroll as well).
I originally read an excerpted version of her memoir (in Written by Herself: Autobiographies of American Women <-- highly recommend). I enjoyed the excerpted version so much, that I almost immediately ordered her book.
The beginning takes a little while to get into, but soon enough, you're following her to New York as she enrolls in medical school and later sets up her own practice with a fellow woman doctor and then gets involved with preventive public health and on and on it goes, as she steps into different roles and situations and seeks to fill the gaps she finds.
Baker has a no-nonsense style to her writing. Don't come to this book seeking lyrical prose or a literary masterpiece. Her writing flows, as if she's sitting and talking with you, recounting her life. I learned a ton -- about her, her work, and the world as it was back then (think, women's suffrage, "little mothers," Soviet Russia -- oh, and baby care).
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and recommend it to anyone who enjoys learning, values the work of women in the world, and is curious about history.
March 8, 2022
Excellent book; I recommend it to anyone interested in a good biography, the history of medicine, or women’s history. Although Dr. Baker often writes of very serious subjects, she manages to always do it with a twinkle in her eye. She seemed like a cheerful person, and it was a pure pleasure to read. She had an amazing impact on public health in this country. She helped catch Typhoid Mary, she invented all sorts of life-saving measures we now take for granted, she invented front-closure baby clothes, fought for women’s suffrage, and more. It was amazing to me how many of the things she wrote about in the 1930s when she completed this book are still true today, including reasons for having smaller families, the loss of the general practitioner in medicine, the higher maternal mortality rate in the U.S. than other developed countries, etc. It was not only a fascinating read, but surprisingly relevant. I thought she had remarkable qualities and personality to pave the way as the first woman to do so many things, despite, for example, a crazy mayor who persecuted her or the appalling rudeness of male public health students year after year. I’m very glad I read this book.
March 10, 2016
A fantastic autobiography by a fantastic person, who should not have been forgotten by history. Dr. S. Josephine Baker became an MD in 1898, when there were hardly any women MD's. In 1908, she became the first Head of the newly created Bureau of Child Hygiene in New York City, a post that she held for 15 years. Through amazing insight, perseverance, and an understanding of how to obtain support and money, she is credited with saving the lives of 90,000 babies. An important measure was establishment of Baby Health Stations, where mothers received both cheaper, high quality milk and education on caring for their babies. Midwife training and licensing and visiting nurses to mothers of newborns began on her watch. Baker writes with pride in the accomplishments of the Bureau and with a matter-of-fact, common sense attitude towards her role. Baker also was the one who physically had to get Typhoid Mary out of the kitchens of the city. Although written in 1939, many of her comments about women in society still ring true. Why don't we learn about people like Baker in school?
April 19, 2015
Really good. Some of the chapters are a bit meandering in their musings on different experiences in Baker's life, but all together the book comes together quite well to tell a story of a time roughly 100 years ago...that was not so different from today. Baker, writing from the period between the two world wars, reflects on her medical training and her many accomplishments, but ends on a questioning note about humanity and the future, all that is left to accomplish, and what the right path is to take.
Throughout the book, she also includes little asides about topics like the inevitability of abortion/unsafety of unregulated abortion (an important one for a pro-choicer like me), the convergence of ignorance and malice in opposition to progress, women's rights, and the impossibility of teaching the indignorant (such as Typhoid Mary).
Really, really good.
Throughout the book, she also includes little asides about topics like the inevitability of abortion/unsafety of unregulated abortion (an important one for a pro-choicer like me), the convergence of ignorance and malice in opposition to progress, women's rights, and the impossibility of teaching the indignorant (such as Typhoid Mary).
Really, really good.
October 2, 2013
This engrossing memoir by a woman who was truly a pioneer in the fields of public health and maternal and child health is a must read for anyone interested in those fields. And, although written many decades ago, it is completely relevant to our current debates about health care. The author would be very disappointed, I think, to see how little progress has been made on some of the issues so important to her. A quote that proves this point:
"I have, perhaps unwittingly, done my share to bring state medicine into existence. I am reasonably certain that the next generation will see it immeasurably advanced in the United States and, unlike so many of my colleagues,I am on the whole pleased with the prospect....It is already on the way, and it is now too late for any backward step."
"I have, perhaps unwittingly, done my share to bring state medicine into existence. I am reasonably certain that the next generation will see it immeasurably advanced in the United States and, unlike so many of my colleagues,I am on the whole pleased with the prospect....It is already on the way, and it is now too late for any backward step."
April 3, 2014
Josephine Baker's memoir describes her path to becoming a public health pioneer with unstinting honesty. The historical notes in the introduction suggest you'd understand why people wanted to be friends with her after reading the first page, and they are right. She was quite a person, and her measures to improve public health in New York City saved some 90,000 babies.
One of the most compelling questions in the book is why save the lives of babies? Their importance to their parents is given, but her experiences with World War 1 and touring Russia in the 1930s as they prepared for war suggested that government only cares about the lives of childbearing women and their babies when they are trying to make sure they have ample cannon fodder. I think this is still an important question.
One of the most compelling questions in the book is why save the lives of babies? Their importance to their parents is given, but her experiences with World War 1 and touring Russia in the 1930s as they prepared for war suggested that government only cares about the lives of childbearing women and their babies when they are trying to make sure they have ample cannon fodder. I think this is still an important question.
October 18, 2013
Written in 1939, the author reviews her life's work as the first woman doctor to head the New York Bureau of Child Hygiene at the turn of the century. Baker is credited with implementing practices that saved the lives of thousands of children. She had to face corruption and graft of Tammany NYC and men who didn't want a woman for a boss. Baker was active in the suffrage movement. She was pro breastfeeding, pro midwives, discouraged highly specialized medicine in favor of general practitioners to meet the needs of the general public. We need someone like her today.
August 26, 2014
no, not that Josephine Baker. I don't even know why my library bought this book - maybe they were confused too - but I'm glad they did. It's the memoir of the woman who pretty much invented the preventive approach to public health in New York city in the late 19th and early 20th centuries with childhood nutrition, baby clinics and prenatal care. She became a doctor when women had a hard time getting into medical school, became a cabinet level officer in city administrations where there were no women and played hardball politics with everyone.
April 18, 2016
A simply fascinating autobiography written in the late 1930's. S. Josephine Baker was one of the first women in the US to get a medical degree in the early 1900s. She later went on to be a "crusader" for children's health care and the Children's Health Agency in New York City, she also founded herself as one of the early supporters of the Women's Suffrage movement in the US.
This lady was definitely before her time. She is not a great writer, but her true story is a great one that every woman should read.
This lady was definitely before her time. She is not a great writer, but her true story is a great one that every woman should read.
January 11, 2018
Written in 1939 by the past head of the Department of Child Hygiene in NYC, this book is an eye-opener in the history of child healthcare in the US. S. Josephine Baker became a doctor and then went into the city healthcare department and basically built it from the ground up. Nearly all US schools have a nurse on site because of this amazing woman.
Baker writes frankly about her life and her struggles. She witnessed the worst in poverty and child care and worked tirelessy to change that. Her story is a worthy read.
Baker writes frankly about her life and her struggles. She witnessed the worst in poverty and child care and worked tirelessy to change that. Her story is a worthy read.
November 27, 2013
The woman championed preventative care and "saved" 90,000 babies as a result. Really fascinating look at infant healthcare and the start of what seems so common sense nowadays. The bits on her trip to Russia are particularly entertaining. A memoir entirely on her professional experience, I need to find a bio on this woman, because I bet she had a crazy personal life.
November 21, 2013
An autobiography of one of the first American female doctors, this book is interesting for many reasons. It depicts the struggles that women faced in gaining acceptance as professionals in the early 1900's, and it shows the deplorable conditions that poor people endured in New York City at that time.
March 22, 2014
What a fascinating book! It wasn't brilliantly written and the timelines were a little blurry, but it was a treat to read about such a successful, brilliant, thoughtful woman. She was first in many areas in her day and responsible for groundbreaking public health policy and practice, much of which we follow to this day. I'm so glad I read this book.
October 23, 2018
The book started out slow and dull. I stuck with it and fortunately it ended up being a fascinating read.
Dr. Baker wrote the memoir in 1939. As a woman and a physician, she was way ahead of the times and a force to be reckoned with. Dr. Baker should be the role model for young ladies for using her brain instead of some of the women of today that are only known for their butts or breasts.
Dr. Baker wrote the memoir in 1939. As a woman and a physician, she was way ahead of the times and a force to be reckoned with. Dr. Baker should be the role model for young ladies for using her brain instead of some of the women of today that are only known for their butts or breasts.
September 16, 2013
Autobiography of an amazing woman. One of the first female physicians in the US and a woman who did an incredible job working on child hygiene in the early 1900's that saved many, many babies lives. Often opinionated but interesting.
May 7, 2014
This is one of the most fascinating books I have ever read. Baker provides such an interesting perspective about life in NYC, politics, public health and feminism. The part about Typhoid Mary is the icing on the cake.
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