Mary Woodard Lasker (November 30, 1900February 21, 1994) was an American health activist and philanthropist. She worked to raise funds for medical research and founded the

Lasker Foundation The Lasker Awards have been awarded annually since 1945 to living persons who have made major contributions to medical science or who have performed public service on behalf of medicine. They are administered by the Lasker Foundation, which was f ...

Early life

Mary Woodard was born in Watertown, Wisconsin, the daughter of Sara Johnson Woodard and Frank Elwin Woodard. Lasker attended the

University of Wisconsin, Madison A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...

and graduated from

Radcliffe College Radcliffe College was a women's liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and functioned as the female coordinate institution for the all-male Harvard College. Considered founded in 1879, it was one of the Seven Sisters colleges and he ...

with a major in Art History. While Lasker was growing up, her mother, an active civic leader, instilled in Lasker the values of urban beautification. Lasker worked as an art dealer at Reinhardt Galleries in New York City. She married the owner Paul Reinhardt. After divorcing, she created a fabric company, Hollywood Patterns.

Health Advocate

In 1938 she became the president of the Birth Control Federation of America, the precursor of the

Planned Parenthood The Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc. (PPFA), or simply Planned Parenthood, is a nonprofit organization that provides reproductive health care in the United States and globally. It is a tax-exempt corporation under Internal Reve ...

Federation. Her second marriage was to

Lord and Thomas Foote, Cone & Belding (FCB), is one of the largest global advertising agency networks. It is owned by Interpublic Group and was merged in 2006 with Draft Worldwide, adopting the name Draftfcb. In 2014 the company rebranded itself as FCB. Parent ...

advertising executive Albert Lasker until his death in the early 1950s of

colon cancer Colorectal cancer (CRC), also known as bowel cancer, colon cancer, or rectal cancer, is the development of cancer from the colon or rectum (parts of the large intestine). Signs and symptoms may include blood in the stool, a change in bowel mo ...

. Ironically, her husband's ad agency had promoted smoking with the slogan, "L.S.M.F.T.—Lucky Strike Means Fine Tobacco" back when the dangers of smoking were not well known. Indeed, Albert's special charge at his firm was to get more women to smoke, as they lagged far behind men as smokers. The Laskers supported the national health insurance proposal under President

Harry S. Truman Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884December 26, 1972) was the 33rd president of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. A leader of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 34th vice president from January to April 1945 under Franklin ...

. After its failure, Mary Lasker saw research funding as the best way to promote public health. With her husband, they created the

in 1942 to promote medical research. The Lasker Award is considered the most prestigious American award in medical research. As of 2015, eighty-seven Lasker laureates have gone on to receive a

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...

. Together, they were the first to apply the power of modern advertising and promotion to fighting cancer. They joined the American Society for the Control of Cancer which at the time was sleepy and ineffectual and transformed it into the

American Cancer Society The American Cancer Society (ACS) is a nationwide voluntary health organization dedicated to eliminating cancer. Established in 1913, the society is organized into six geographical regions of both medical and lay volunteers operating in more than ...

. The Laskers ousted the board of directors. Afterwards, they raised then record amounts of money and directed much of it to research. The American Cancer Society also fought lung cancer through prevention via anti-smoking campaigns. Using TV equal-time provisions, they were able to counter cigarette advertising with their own message. In 1970, Congress passed a law banning the advertising of cigarettes on television, so the anti-smoking commercials likewise went off the air. Following her husband's death, she founded the National Health Education Committee. She played major roles in promoting and expanding the

National Institutes of Health The National Institutes of Health, commonly referred to as NIH (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in the late ...

, helping its budget expand by a factor of 2000 times from $2.4 million in 1945 to $5.5 billion in 1985. Lasker was prominent in lobbying Eleanor Roosevelt to endorse Lyndon Johnson's efforts to become the 1960 Democratic nominee. Lady Bird Johnson wrote about Lasker numerous times in her book ''

A White House Diary ''A White House Diary'' is a 1970 memoir by Lady Bird Johnson. Writing and publication Lady Bird Johnson regularly made tape-recorded notes of her daily activities while her husband was president. The diary totaled 1.75 million words of voice ...

'', calling her house "charming ... like a setting for jewels" and thanking her for gifts of

daffodil ''Narcissus'' is a genus of predominantly spring flowering perennial plants of the amaryllis family, Amaryllidaceae. Various common names including daffodil,The word "daffodil" is also applied to related genera such as '' Sternbergia'', ''Is ...

bulbs for parkways along the

Potomac River The Potomac River () drains the Mid-Atlantic United States, flowing from the Potomac Highlands into Chesapeake Bay. It is long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map. Retrieved Augus ...

and for thousands of

azalea Azaleas are flowering shrubs in the genus ''Rhododendron'', particularly the former sections ''Tsutsusi'' (evergreen) and '' Pentanthera'' (deciduous). Azaleas bloom in the spring (April and May in the temperate Northern Hemisphere, and Octob ...

bushes, flowering dogwood and other plants to put along Pennsylvania Avenue. Lasker was also instrumental in getting the US government to fund the

War on Cancer The "war on cancer" is the effort to find a cure for cancer by increased research to improve the understanding of cancer biology and the development of more effective cancer treatments, such as targeted drug therapies. The aim of such efforts is t ...

in 1971.

Braniff Airways Board Member

On September 15, 1971, Mrs. Lasker was elected to the Board of Directors of Braniff Airways, Incorporated. She became only the second female board member of Braniff following Braniff cofounder Thomas Elmer Braniff's wife, Bess Clark Braniff, who was elected to the board after the untimely death of her husband in January 1954. Mary Lasker's appointment to the Braniff board was rare and she joined a very small group of women who were directors at large American corporations.

Awards and recognition

Mary Lasker is a recipient of the

Presidential Medal of Freedom The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the highest civilian award of the United States, along with the Congressional Gold Medal. It is an award bestowed by the president of the United States to recognize people who have made "an especially merito ...

in 1969, the

Four Freedoms Award The Four Freedoms Award is an annual award presented to "those men and women whose achievements have demonstrated a commitment to those principles which United States, US President of the United States, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt proclaime ...

1987 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 1989. The

Mary Woodard Lasker Award for Public Service Mary may refer to: People * Mary (name), a feminine given name (includes a list of people with the name) Religious contexts * New Testament people named Mary, overview article linking to many of those below * Mary, mother of Jesus, also calle ...

was renamed in her honour in 2000. On May 14, 2009 the United States Postal Service honored Lasker with the issuance of a stamp of face value 78 cents, designed by Mark Summers. The stamp was released, in part, as recognition of a renewed US government commitment to funding of biomedical research. A release ceremony was held in Lasker's hometown on May 15, 2009.

Organizations

* Birth Control Federation of America *

National Committee for Mental Hygiene National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, ce ...

* National Health Education Foundation *

* Research to Prevent Blindness *

Cancer Research Institute The Cancer Research Institute (CRI) is a US non-profit organization funding cancer research and based in New York City. They were founded in 1953 to develop immunologically-based treatments for cancer, and despite their name are a funding body fo ...

* United Cerebral Palsy Research and Education Foundation *

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

American Heart Association The American Heart Association (AHA) is a nonprofit organization in the United States that funds cardiovascular medical research, educates consumers on healthy living and fosters appropriate cardiac care in an effort to reduce disability and death ...

References

Sources

The Mary Lasker Papers

External links

Biography, photographs, and interviews of Mary Lasker from the Notable New Yorkers collection of the Oral History Research Office at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

.
The Mary Lasker Papers
- Profiles in Science, National Library of Medicine {{DEFAULTSORT:Lasker, Mary 1900 births 1994 deaths American health activists American philanthropists Congressional Gold Medal recipients People from Watertown, Wisconsin Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients Radcliffe College alumni University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni People associated with Planned Parenthood Burials at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery Lasker Award Recipients of the Four Freedoms Award