Anne Daniel (also known as Annie Sturgis Daniel) (September 21, 1858 – August 11, 1944) was an American physician and public health reformer who focused on improving living conditions of the

tenement A tenement is a type of building shared by multiple dwellings, typically with flats or apartments on each floor and with shared entrance stairway access. They are common on the British Isles, particularly in Scotland. In the medieval Old Town, i ...

population and female prison population in New York City.

Education

Daniel attended the Woman's Medical College of the New York Infirmary, where she specialized in

obstetrics Obstetrics is the field of study concentrated on pregnancy, childbirth and the postpartum period. As a medical specialty, obstetrics is combined with gynecology under the discipline known as obstetrics and gynecology (OB/GYN), which is a surgi ...

gynecology Gynaecology or gynecology (see spelling differences) is the area of medicine that involves the treatment of women's diseases, especially those of the reproductive organs. It is often paired with the field of obstetrics, forming the combined are ...

, and

pediatrics Pediatrics ( also spelled ''paediatrics'' or ''pædiatrics'') is the branch of medicine that involves the medical care of infants, children, adolescents, and young adults. In the United Kingdom, paediatrics covers many of their youth until th ...

. As a student in New York City, she was exposed to the poverty and illness inherent in tenement life. The connection she saw between health and social environment sparked her interest in public reform.

Career

For over 60 years, Daniel taught and supervised students at the

New York Infirmary NewYork-Presbyterian Lower Manhattan Hospital is a nonprofit, Acute (medicine), acute care, teaching hospital in New York City and is the only hospital in Lower Manhattan south of Greenwich Village. It is part of the NewYork-Presbyterian Healthca ...

. She focused especially on educating the tenement population on hygiene, childcare, and preventative medicine. She wanted to prevent tenement dwellers from working from their homes, which often involved female and child labor. Daniel was also heavily involved in local government, pushing for legislation to improve the lives of women and children and women's status in the public sphere. She was a member of the Working Women's Society and a supporter of the early

suffrage Suffrage, political franchise, or simply franchise, is the right to vote in representative democracy, public, political elections and referendums (although the term is sometimes used for any right to vote). In some languages, and occasionally i ...

movement, but much of her legislative efforts dealt with the female prison population. A report she wrote for the Women's Prison Association of New York in 1886 led to the requirement of prisons to hire female wardens to supervise female prisoners. Daniel wrote a history of the hospital in the 1930s, entitled ''′A cautious experiment.′ The history of the New York Infirmary for Women and Children and the Woman's Medical College of the New York Infirmary'', which was serialized in the ''Medical Woman’s Journal'' (46) between May 1939 and December 1939.

Influence

At the New York Infirmary, Daniel's course “The Normal Child” led to

Sara Josephine Baker Sara Josephine Baker (November 15, 1873 – February 22, 1945) was an American physician notable for making contributions to public health, especially in the immigrant communities of New York City. Her fight against the damage that widespread ur ...

's fascination with children's healthcare. Baker went on to implement public health measures that, once recognized, saved the lives of millions worldwide.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Daniel, Anne 1858 births 1944 deaths American women physicians American women academics American public health doctors Women public health doctors