Mary Mallon

Mary Mallon was born in Ireland on September 23, 1869, and came to the United States young, working as a cook in New York-based households from 1897 onward. Between 1897 and 1907, members of four families she worked for contracted typhoid fever; an investigation by epidemiologist George Soper identified her as an asymptomatic carrier of Salmonella Typhi bacteria, the first person in the U.S. recognized as such. In 1907 she was forcibly quarantined at Riverside Hospital on North Brother Island, held until 1910 when she swore to report quarterly to the health department and abandon cooking. In early 1915 a typhoid outbreak at Sloane Maternity Hospital - twenty-five cases, two deaths - traced back to Mallon, who had returned to kitchen work. She was sent back to North Brother Island and remained there until her death on November 11, 1938, confined far longer than any of the four hundred other asymptomatic carriers identified during her lifetime, most of whom received state support and jobs outside food service.