1 1

Fighting for Life

Fighting for Life

by S. Josephine Baker, introduction by Helen Epstein

$17.95
$0.00 $17.95
American Literature Available as E-Book Biography & Memoir History Literature in English
Format
This title can be purchased from your favorite e-book retailer,
including  many independent booksellers.

Buy on Amazon   Buy on iBooks   Buy on Barnes&Noble

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.S. Josephine Baker, introduction by Helen Epstein

Additional Book Information

Series: NYRB Classics
ISBN: 9781590177068
Pages: 304
Publication Date:

Praise

The fact that [Baker] achieved so much professionally as a woman in the medical field is made more impressive by the fact that in 1900, only 6% of physicians were women. . . . The public health crusader was also a suffragette and a feminist who was with her female life partner, the writer Ida Wylie, from 1920 until her death in 1945. . . . At a time when New York City and the rest of the world are dealing with another public health crisis, Dr. Baker’s commitment to serving the most vulnerable among us is an important reminder.
—Sarah Prager, them.

Dr. Baker shines not only for her contributions to public health and social policy, but also for her work as a woman in government administration, supervising a staff that included many male physicians. Her work made her a leading figure in public health and the New York City Bureau of Child Hygiene became a model for similar programs in other cities, as well as for the United States Children's Bureau.
—U.S. National Library of Medicine

Rather than spending her time swanning about town, Josephine Baker became a pioneer, dedicating her life to the field of preventive health care for children.
—Anthony Bourdain

View full details

  • Shopping for someone else but not sure what to give them? Give them the gift of choice with a New York Review Books Gift Card.

    Gift Cards 

  • A membership for yourself or as a gift for a special reader will promise a year of good reading.

    Join NYRB Classics Book Club 

  • Is there a book that you’d like to see back in print, or that you think we should consider for one of our series? Let us know!

    Tell us about it