The June 20, 1909, story in the American that identified Mary Mallon for the first time for the American public was a masterful example of Hearst’s brand of journalism. The layout design alone told a story of death and disease certain to alarm any reader. Framing the two-page spread and dominating its announcement of a new public health danger was a full-page drawing of a buxom cook, a woman breaking human skulls like eggs into a skillet (see fig. 5.1). Here was an aproned woman, hair carefully coiffed, arched eyebrows: an ordinary woman. But look closer. Her mouth is set, she has a double chin. The shading indicates—perhaps—a degree of masculine hairiness on her face and arms. Her ordinary occupation of cooking is perverted by the clear reference to the demonic. This hairy, heavy-set, determined woman is one who rolls up her sleeves to cook humans: a killer. Mary Mallon is transformed into Typhoid Mary: a real woman made into a caricature.
The picture is more powerful than the text that accompanies it. Certainly the image is hard to dispel, even today, and just like today its contemporary viewers kept this image before them and referred back to it repeatedly. The characterization of Mary Mallon as inhuman, a devil in the shape of a woman, was powerful. It made people uneasy: who would want to eat in her kitchen? Mary Mallon, an immigrant woman domestic, has turned the ordinary task of cooking into a death-producing act.
The American’s readers faced this headline on opening the Sunday magazine section: “ ‘Typhoid Mary’ Most Harmless and Yet the Most Dangerous Woman in America.” The paradox in the headline captured Mallon’s situation. Its bold use of the phrase “Typhoid Mary” set the person Mary Mallon apart from the new public health concept she represented. The reporter noted that “she has committed no crime, has never been accused of an immoral or wicked act, and has never been a prisoner in any court, nor has she been sentenced to imprisonment by any judge.” Yet, he concluded, “It is probable that Mary Mallon is a prisoner for life.”9
From the time this article was first published to the present day, it is possible to see two distinct parts to Mary Mallon’s story: the woman, who was caught in a dilemma over which she had little control, and the symbol, which represented meanings imposed on her story that changed over time and reached far beyond her specific case. Our present-day use of the epithet Typhoid Mary, instead of the name Mary Mallon, not only in discussions of public health problems but also in our general language, is clear evidence of how potent the term is. The woman herself has receded in historical memory.
Fig. 5.1. “Typhoid Mary” breaking skulls into skillet, 1909.
The language of the June 20, 1909, American news report evoked sympathy, as its author no doubt intended. Here was a woman who could not help herself, who could not stop being dangerous; she was doomed to sit “forever” in her island prison. “Through no fault of hers, Mary Mallon is a living, walking incubator of typhoid fever germs.” The reporter revealed about Mallon herself that “she has served in the kitchens of many New York millionaires with entire satisfaction for many years.”
The sympathetic report about Mary Mallon’s “extraordinary predicament” accompanied a short statement by William Park revealing that the New York carrier was one among fifty healthy typhoid carriers so far discovered in the country. Park stated that Mallon was “remarkable” among all carriers because of the large number of cases associated with her, by which he may have meant that Soper’s tracing of her typhoid-transmitting history was the most complete. Like other health officials, the bacteriologist described Mary Mallon as “a large, healthy looking woman, a typical cook, and there is nothing in her outward appearance to indicate that she is other than normal.” Park also told the press, curiously (since it was not the case), that “she is, of course, segregated with the typhoid patients.” North Brother Island sheltered tuberculosis sufferers, and department reports indicated no typhoid patients there at all. Park probably intended to reassure the public that health authorities had the situation well under control.
Fig. 5.2. “Typhoid Mary” article in New York American, June 20, 1909.
Park’s statement, the reporter’s coverage, the third section of the article (a reprint of George Soper’s 1907 paper describing his tracing of Mallon’s employment and carrier history), and the final section, a description of some “curious facts” about typhoid fever, all presented with sympathy the dilemma of a healthy person locked up possibly for life, but nowhere is much attention paid to the individual involved. We learn surprisingly little about Mary Mallon herself in these pages.
Whatever sympathy the story might have evoked for Mary Mallon was counter-balanced by the combined effect of the illustrations and photographs that framed it (see fig. 5.2). Readers confronted not only the large drawing of the demonic cook but also silhouettes of her victims marching silently across the top of the two-page spread: “4 Laundresses, [3 Grounds]keepers, 1 Gentleman Visitor, 3 Society Women, 6 of a Lawyer’s Family, 1 Footman, 1 Nurse, 1 Workwoman, 2 Daughters and Their Mother, 1 Trained Nurse, 1 Parlor Maid, 1 Negro Servant Girl.” The grouping served as a warning: all sorts of people were at risk from people like Mary Mallon.
Four photographs also accompanied the story, scattered across the two-page spread. One shows Mary Mallon in bed, “resting in her cot” at Willard Parker Hospital (see chap. 4, fig. 4.2) looking vulnerable and alone even though her bed is in a ward full of other patients and staff. The reader saw a young woman the newspaper story said was healthy, prone, in a room full of sick people. The second is a photograph of buildings on North Brother Island, among which the mind’s eye could envision a lonely Mary wandering. The caption to this “panoramic bird’s-eye view” of the island says it is where Mary Mallon is “held a prisoner of medical science” (see fig. 5.3). The third photograph shows a group of patients sitting in the sun outside one of the island’s buildings, one of whom is said to be Mary Mallon (see fig. 5.4). Apparently the American saw no problem in publishing this photograph even though the story describes Mary as living alone on the island and as a prisoner. The fourth photograph shows “dinner in the dining pavilion,” again implying that Mallon ate with others in a common dining room, although later reports insist Mary always ate alone in her own bungalow (see fig. 5.5). Readers could come away from the story wondering how a healthy woman in the prime of life could survive this daily regimen designed for sick patients, possibly for the rest of her life. But this article would give them no cause to question the medical science that held Mary captive or to wonder if her imprisonment were necessary. It was simply sad.10
Fig. 5.3. “Panoramic Bird’s-eye View of . . . North Brother Island.”
Fig. 5.4. Group of patients on North Brother Island; Mary Mallon is probably fourth from the right, but she could be the woman with her back to the camera.
The American’s June 20 story made one very telling point, which must not have eluded Mallon herself. Referring to the other contagious disease patients on the island, the reporter wrote, “While Mary sees these unfortunate victims of various diseases come on the hospital boat and, in due time, return to their homes and friends—Mary stays on forever.” Isolation on the island when one was sick and expected to recover in time was difficult; but the reporter wanted his readers to ponder something much more devastating: life-long isolation when one was healthy.
Fig. 5.5. Patient Dining Room, North Brother Island.
All New York newspapers picked up the story of Mary Mallon and her lawyer George Francis O’Neill who in June of 1909 were in court seeking her release from her isolation on North Brother Island. The American, ten days after first scooping the story of her isolation, again offered the most drama when it covered the habeas corpus hearing. “Why Should I Be Banished Like a Leper?” ran a three-column header on page one on June 30. The analogy to people infected with leprosy was itself very powerful. Three illustrations accompanied the article, all of which depicted a more appealing woman than the cook breaking skulls into the frying pan. The shift might indicate the American was responding to a sympathetic public a
nd making an intentional play for readership. It completely challenged the health department view of Mallon as a social “menace,” the view department officials presented during the court hearings.
In these American renditions, and in the accompanying text, Mary Mallon became more a victim than an aggressor. A portrait of her dominates the page, a drawing which seems to be taken from a photograph. In it, a serious but attractive young woman, whose hairdo and dress fit the fashion of the day, gazes directly from the page (fig. 5.6). She does not look like a woman who could be guilty of bringing death to others by her cooking. If it were not for the accompanying text, we might take her for the daughter of a prominent New Yorker, perhaps on her way to a party.
Two cartoon-like drawings are set directly under the portrait. The one on the left, a cook preparing a deadly stew, intrudes onto the formal portrait with—again—skulls steaming out of the cooking pot. But this drawing, despite its depiction of death, is milder than its predecessor. The skulls float from the pot on their own; in the previous version, the cook dropped them into the skillet. In this picture, too, the cook is more feminine, even a bit jaunty, thinner, more at ease. Her face, although not drawn in detail, is innocent. If she is cooking up destruction, she does not seem to be aware of it. The caption reads, “Worked as a cook and was supposed to have spread typhoid germs.” Supposed to have: the text follows the illustrator and is not sure of her guilt.
The injustice of the situation and Mallon’s innocence in the artist’s eyes is further portrayed in the right-hand drawing under the portrait. Here Mary Mallon is being dragged into an ambulance by four men. She is giving them a hard time; on her face is her hurt and her outrage. But her lack of cooperation is sympathetically shown—she is not a devil who needs to be seized, but rather a woman, still in her apron, who may not deserve to go. The two officers’ faces are not gentle or kind. They are not monsters, either, but they are doing their job with a certain lack of sympathy. The bowler-hatted health officer behind them (even though Mary Mallon was taken by a woman health officer) is solemn; her arrest is serious business. There are no demons in this tripartite grouping; but there is a heroine with whom viewers can identify and sympathize. The newspaper’s illustrator emphasized the human aspects of the story that connected Mary Mallon to the newspaper’s readers.
Fig. 5.6 Mary Mallon portrait with two accompanying cartoons, 1909.
American reporters interviewed Mallon on her way to the New York Supreme Court hearing and presented to their one million morning and evening readers a human interest portrayal of the woman, who, “Never Ill, Begs Freedom.”11 The story focused on the sad facts of a woman about to turn forty whose life was ruined through no fault of her own. “No stranger who saw Mary Mallon yesterday,” the reporter wrote, “would have suspected the danger the Health Board alleges it finds in this young woman. She has a clear, healthy complexion, regular features, bright eyes and white teeth.” The news reporter treated health officials with some skepticism here, which had not been the case ten days earlier, when, possibly, the newness of the revelations brought more respect to the medical side of the story. The reporter went on, in questioning Mary Mallon’s situation, to notice, “Strangely enough, the Island is now a retreat for only tuberculosis patients.” The text questioned both whether Mallon really carried the germs attributed to her and the wisdom of putting her in an institution catering to another disease.
During the early twentieth century, the press generally covered new advances in medicine and science in a positive and sympathetic way. Samuel Hopkins Adams in McClure’s (as Paul De Kruif later on) helped spread promising news of scientific triumphs, and, as historian Terra Ziporyn has shown, newspapers and journals around the country increased coverage when new vaccines were developed or other breakthroughs occurred.12 The Hearst newspapers capitalized on the public’s interest in science but also, still in the cause of capturing readers’ attention, emphasized the human and emotional aspects of their stories. The Typhoid Mary story was intriguing both because it exemplified the latest scientific discoveries and at the same time it allowed reporters to write about an individual caught by circumstance.
After the judge ruled that Mary Mallon had to return to North Brother Island, the World, too, carried an emotional and sympathetic story. “ ‘I’m Persecuted!’ Is Plaintive Plea of ‘Typhoid Mary,’ ” ran the headline to an article about a “stout, jovial cook who was loved by the children in every family in which she was employed.” The reporter quoted Mary Mallon: “As there is a God in Heaven, I will get justice, somehow, sometime,” she insisted. “ ‘Typhoid Mary,’ ” the newspaper wrote, “as the Health Department has christened her, is a large, fairhaired woman of forty. Her face indicates character.” The reporter distanced himself from the negative meaning implied by his use of the term Typhoid Mary by blaming that on the health department, and he portrayed Mallon as a woman caught in a situation beyond her control.13
Although they acknowledged the health officials’ claims that Mary Mallon transmitted typhoid fever to people for whom she cooked, the newspapers filled space with sympathetic human interest about the woman herself. Such personal appeal peaked with the American’s story of Mallon’s marriage proposal from a Michigan farmer, Reuben Gray, quoted in a letter to the health department: “If Miss Mallon is not over ten years older [than his 28] and has nothing other than what you have found to bar her from the society of the world, and you will pardon her and get her into Michigan and see that the authorities of Michigan are not wise that she is here, and she will agree to become my wife, I will agree to become her husband.” But, Gray warned, “One thing she should be made aware of before the tie is bound and that is that I have (the ‘have’ is underscored three times) been insane, but it was over three years ago, and I was pronounced cured then and never had a return of the disease.” Apparently some Michigan neighbors or the health department dissented, and nothing further came of the proposal.14
Other New York newspapers, less sensationalist or with smaller circulations than the American or the World, also became interested in the Mary Mallon saga. The New York Tribune carried the story about the “unfortunate woman” only after the judge remanded her back to the island.15 The New York Times editorialized that her stigma and notoriety would follow her until “her unique propensity is dispelled” through medical treatment, indicating considerable faith in science to be able to cure her.16 The Evening Sun limited itself to reporting the events in court, except when describing Mary Mallon: “She was the picture of a healthy and well-fed cook. She is about 40 years old, with a mass of light-colored hair, florid complexion, and weighs about 200 pounds.” This physical portrayal echoes what became the standard view of Mallon’s bodily proportions, although, again, such size is not reflected in her photograph.17
The New York Herald repeated the story available in all the other newspapers. However, its reporters described a smaller Mallon as “about forty years old, weighs perhaps 160 pounds and is medium in stature. Her cheeks were slightly colored and her blue eyes seemed clear and sparkling.”18 The socialist New York Call portrayed the story as a “fight for freedom,” but did not add any new dimensions in its descriptions.19
One significant discrepancy emerged in the various June and July, 1909, news stories about Mary Mallon. The American presented a rendition of Mallon living alone on North Brother Island, seeing virtually no one, and having only “a dog for a companion,” which was repeated in all newspapers except the World. That newspaper conducted its own interview with the cook and came away with a more social version of her life on the island. Pulitzer’s World, then with a daily circulation over 700,000 and a Sunday readership numbering almost 450,000, insisted Mary Mallon mingled freely with patients and staff. “Mary Mallon is permitted the freedom of the island,” the reporter wrote, “and the doctors are glad to have her nurse the children who are there with every kind of contagious disease.”20 These different versions of Mary Mallon’s North Brother Island life will be explo
red in the next chapter; for the moment, we can see that both images served to evoke public sympathy for Mary Mallon’s personal story.
The sympathy voiced in the press in 1909 seemed to portray public sentiment at the same time as it worked to shape it. Mary Mallon was a woman caught by circumstances, not a woman to blame. The news stories revealed a certain ambivalence toward her, as the illustration of the cook breaking skulls in the skillet suggests, but any negative view that the health officials may have wished to promote did not capture the public imagination at the time of the habeas corpus hearings, insofar as we can judge it from the popular press. Although health officials believed Mallon a sufficient threat to the public’s health to hold her in isolation on North Brother Island, they did not successfully communicate to the public how dangerous they believed Mallon was. To the news readers, the human misfortune spoke louder than the potential danger, perhaps in part because the public still had trouble understanding the concept of a healthy person transmitting disease through invisible organisms lodged in the gallbladder.
The divergence between sympathetic public opinion and the health department’s portrayal of a menacing healthy carrier in 1909 may have prevented the officials, once they secured Mallon back on the island following the habeas corpus hearing, from launching a visible campaign to protect the public from the danger carriers posed. Knowing that carriers lived throughout the city and that many of them prepared food for others, officials could have used the opportunity of overcoming the legal challenge in court to launch a widescale attack on the problem. Instead, perhaps in response to the loud sympathy for Mallon voiced in the press, they remained silent.
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