Sara Josephine Baker, American Physician
Sara Josephine Baker (1873-1945) was an American physician notable for contributions to public health in New York City. She founded the Bureau of Child Hygiene. Her revolutionary methods of teaching hygiene, providing nutrition, and prenatal care reduced infant mortality. Going door-to-door with a team of 30 nurses, Dr. Baker taught basic hygiene, nutrition, ventilation. She established free milk stations, devised a simple baby formula, created training for older children who had to care for younger when the mother went to work to earn food for the family, invented the system of making baby clothes all open down the front. Under her guidance the infant mortality rate of 1, 500 per week dropped to 300 and soon New York could claim the lowest infant mortality rate in the world. She retired in 1923 after all 48 states had copied her methods. She was a member of the delegation that visited Woodrow Wilson in the White House to receive his official endorsement of the Nineteenth Amendment
