Baker, Edith M. (Edith Mildred), 1885-1978

Edith Mildred Baker, social worker, was born in Baltimore, Md., the daughter of Harriet (Whiteley) and Charles E. Baker. After graduating from Simmons College School of Social Work, she was a social worker at Massachusetts General Hospital (1914-1923) and director of social services in the Washington University Clinics and Allied Hospitals, St. Louis, Mo. (1923-1935). In 1935, Dr. Martha May Eliot asked Baker to join the U.S. Children's Bureau (Department of Labor) in Washington, D.C., where she became director of the Medical Social Work department.

Baker believed that social services should be a component of health care for mothers and children. She was a leader in the field, organizing and participating in many conferences on the subject throughout the U.S.; she also helped schools of social work develop courses to prepare students for medical social work. After retiring from the federal government in 1954, Baker became chief of the Social Service Division of the Bureau of Maternal and Child Health of the District of Columbia Department of Public Health.