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Typhoid Mary

Captive to the Public's Health

Author: Judith Walzer Leavitt

The haunting true story of Mary Mallon, whose life became a battleground between individual liberty and public safety

Now in a new Beacon Classics edition

As an Irish immigrant cook in New York City between 1900–1907, Mary Mallon infected 22 people with typhoid fever—one fatally—before being tracked down by public health officials and isolated on North Brother Island for the rest of her life.

This book tells the remarkable story of Mary Mallon—the real Typhoid Mary. Historian Judith Leavitt blends social history with biography to recreate early-20th-century New York, a city marked by strict class divisions and prejudice against women and immigrants. Leavitt brings the story to life, incorporating the early days of microbiology and the conflicting perspectives of journalists, public health officials, the law, and Mary Mallon herself.

Leavitt’s readable account illuminates questions that continue to haunt us in the 21st century:

To what degree are we willing to sacrifice individual liberty to protect the public’s health?
How far should we go to protect the public amid new pandemics and rising resistance to vaccines?

For anyone concerned about the threats and quandaries posed by new epidemics, Typhoid Mary is a vivid reminder of the human side of disease control.