Sara Josephine Baker..."Doctor Jo"

When I hear the name Josephine Baker I think of the beautiful and exotic actress, singer and dancer. You probably do too.  But there is another Josephine Baker that few people know about.  Sara Josephine Baker was born November 15, 1873 in Poughkeepsie New York into a wealthy Quaker family She had fond memories of a happy childhood and a good and supportive relationship with both of her parents.  Her Father Daniel Mosher Baker was a lawyer.  Her mother Jenny Harwood Brown was one of the first women to graduate from Vassar College. Sara was raised with the expectation that she would also attend college but her plans changed when her father and brother died suddenly. Newly responsible for the family’s finances, she gave up her scholarship and applied to medical school instead. In 1894, Baker enrolled at the Woman’s Medical College of the New York Infirmary, originally founded by pioneering physician Elizabeth Blackwell and her sister Emily Blackwell. While associating with the first generation of women to attend medical school, Baker was introduced to some powerful female role models, including faculty member Mary Putnam Jacobi. After graduating in 1898, second in her class of eighteen, Baker negotiated a year’s intern-ship at the New England Hospital for Women and Children in Boston, where she worked at an outpatient clinic serving some of the city’s poorest residents. She developed a keen interest in the connection between poverty and ill health, which led her to a commitment to social medicine that would shape the rest of her career.

 Later she opened a private practice. After earning only $185 in her first year, she became an inspector for the N.Y. City Health Department. Although she maintained her private practice she became involved in public health work with a special concern for lowering infant mortality rate. 

In New York City, at the beginning of the twentieth century, the infant mortality rate was very high. Often there were 1,500 deaths per week during the heat of summer.  In 1908 she tackled this problem with a team of thirty nurses.  They went door to door, advising mothers on breastfeeding, cleanliness and good ventilation.  The mortality rate dropped considerably, which resulted in the establishment of a Bureau of Child Hygiene with Dr. Jo, as her patients had begun calling her, as director.

Dr. Jo was a pioneer in preventive medicine and public health education.  She lectured throughout the United States on child hygiene and published five popular books on the subject in addition to more than 250 magazine articles.  Josephine Baker became the first woman to be a professional representative to the League of Nations representing the U.S. in the Health Committee. In her lifetime and largely because of her efforts, Dr. Baker saw the infant mortality rate in New York City from 111 to 66 per 1,000 births.