Home / Stories / 10 Things You May Not Know About ‘Typhoid Mary’

10 Things You May Not Know About ‘Typhoid Mary’

One of history’s most famous infectious disease carriers, she was put into forced isolation
for more than two decades.

BY: CHRISTOPHER KLEIN

UPDATED: JUNE 1, 2023 | ORIGINAL: MARCH 27, 2015

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1. Typhoid Mary's real name was Mary Mallon.

She was born on September 23, 1869, in Cookstown, a small village in the north of Ireland.
Mallon’s hometown in County Tyrone was among one of Ireland’s poorest areas.

2. Only three con몭rmed deaths were linked to Typhoid Mary.

Mallon was presumed to have infected 51 people, and three of those illnesses resulted in
death. Since she used a number of aliases, it’s possible the true death toll could have been
higher. However, based on the con몭rmed fatalities, Typhoid Mary was not even the most
lethal carrier of the typhoid germ in New York City’s history. In 1922, New Yorker Tony Labella,
a food worker, reportedly caused two outbreaks that combined for more than 100 cases and
몭ve deaths.

3. She emigrated from Ireland as a teenager.

Mallon traveled by herself to start a new life in the United States in 1883. The teenager moved
in with her aunt and uncle in New York City, and even as an adult Mallon never lost her lilting
brogue.

4. Typhoid Mary was the picture of health.

 FOTOSEARCH/GETTY IMAGES

ILLUSTRATION OF TYPHOID MARY BREAKING SKULLS INTO A SKILLET, CIRCA 1909.

Although she harbored the extremely contagious bacteria that cause typhoid fever, Mallon
never demonstrated any of its symptoms—which include fever, headaches and diarrhea.
Immune to the disease herself, Mallon was the 몭rst person in the United States identi몭ed as
an asymptomatic carrier of the pathogen. “She denied ever having been sick with the disease,
and it is likely she never knew she had it, su몭ering only a mild 몭u-like episode,” writes Judith
Walzer Leavitt in her book Typhoid Mary: Captive to the Public’s Health. “The case is without
parallel in medical records,” the San Jose Evening News reported in 1907. “Never has there been
an instance, as the present, where a woman who never had typhoid fever should prove a
veritable germ factory”

5. She spread disease as a cook for a몭uent families.

Like many single women who emigrated from Ireland, Mallon found work in America as a
domestic servant. Perhaps 몭tting given her birth in a hamlet named Cookstown, she proved
adept in the kitchen and cooked for some of New York City’s most elite families.

6. A sleuthing sanitary engineer tracked down Typhoid Mary.

When six members of wealthy banker Charles Warren’s household contracted typhoid fever
while vacationing in Long Island’s Oyster Bay in the summer of 1906, the tony playground of
New York’s rich and famous—and home to Theodore Roosevelt’s Summer White House—was
taken aback. Typhoid fever was viewed as a disease of the crowded slums, associated with
poverty and the lack of basic sanitation. Concerned that the outbreak would prevent him from
leasing out his summer house again, Warren’s landlord hired George Soper, a freelance
sanitary engineer who had investigated other sources of typhoid fever outbreaks, to
determine the cause. Although everything from the house’s plumbing to the local shell몭sh
supply came up negative, the dogged Soper found the cause—Mallon, the cook who had
worked for the Warrens weeks before the outbreak. Soper researched Mallon’s employment
history and found that seven families for whom she had cooked since 1900 had reported
cases of typhoid fever, which had resulted in the infection of 22 people and the death of one
girl.

7. A combination of peach ice cream and Mallon’s poor hand-washing likely sparked
typhoid fever outbreaks.

Doctors theorized that Mallon likely passed along typhoid germs by failing to vigorously scrub
her hands before handling food. However, since the elevated temperatures necessary to cook
food would have killed the bacteria, Soper wondered just how Mallon could have transferred
the germs. He found the answer in one of Mallon’s most popular dessert dishes—ice cream
with raw peaches cut up and frozen in it. “I suppose no better way could be found for a cook
to cleanse her hands of microbes and infect a family,” Soper wrote.

8. William Randolph Hearst may have bankrolled Typhoid Mary’s suit for freedom.

Based on Soper’s sleuthing, the New York City Health Department took Mallon into custody in
1907 and placed her into forced con몭nement inside a bungalow on 16-acre North Brother
Island, o몭 the Bronx shoreline, with only a fox terrier as a companion. “I never had typhoid in
my life and have always been healthy,” Mallon wrote. “Why should I be banished like a leper
and compelled to live in solitary con몭nement with only a dog for a companion?” Armed with
test results from a private laboratory that came up negative, Mallon in 1909 sued the health
department for her freedom, but the New York Supreme Court denied her petition. Where did
Mallon get the money to hire a lawyer and pay the legal bills? Leavitt says speculation has
fallen on newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, who “had done so for other people
whose stories interested his newspaper’s readers.” In 1910, new health commissioner Ernst
Lederle agreed to release Mallon if she pledged never to work as a cook again.

9. She broke her promise to stay out of the kitchen.

OTIS HISTORICAL
ARCHIVES/NATIONAL MUSEUM
OF HEALTH & MEDICINE

POSTER WARNING OF THE DANGERS OF FOOD CONTAMINATION.

In 1915, an outbreak of typhoid fever at Manhattan’s Sloane Maternity Hospital struck 25

workers and killed two. The epidemic was traced to the hospital’s cook, whom the sta몭 had
 nicknamed “Typhoid Mary.” Little did they know that it actually was Mallon, who had taken the
assumed name of “Mary Brown.” The health department had lost track of Mallon after her
release, during which time she cooked in hotels, restaurants and institutions. After her
capture, Mallon was once again con몭ned to North Brother Island.

10. Typhoid Mary spent 26 years in forced isolation.

After her second apprehension, Mallon spent the last 23 years of her life as a virtual prisoner
in forced isolation, adding to the three years from her 몭rst stint on North Brother Island.
Although hundreds, if not thousands, of asymptomatic carriers who had been identi몭ed
walked the sidewalks of New York freely, Typhoid Mary alone lived in exile in large part due to
the public opinion that turned 몭rmly against her after her failure to stay out of the kitchen.
She was fated to cook only for herself until her death on November 11, 1938.

BY: CHRISTOPHER KLEIN

Christopher Klein is the author of four books, including When the Irish Invaded Canada:
The Incredible True Story of the Civil War Veterans Who Fought for Ireland’s Freedom and
Strong Boy: The Life and Times of John L. Sullivan. His work has appeared in numerous
publications, including The Boston Globe, The New York Times, and National Geographic
Traveler. Follow Chris at @historyauthor.

Citation Information
Article Title 10 Things You May Not Know About ‘Typhoid Mary’

Author Christopher Klein

Website Name HISTORY

URL https://www.history.com/news/10-things-you-may-not-know-about-typhoid-mary

Date Accessed August 22, 2023

Publisher A&E Television Networks

Last Updated June 1, 2023

Original Published Date March 27, 2015

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