Constellation Similarity Assertions

Baumgartner, Leona, 1902-1991

Leona Baumgartner (1902-1991), A.B., 1923, University of Kansas; M.A., 1925, University of Kansas; Ph.D., 1932, Yale University; M.D., 1934, Yale University, was the first female Commissioner of Public Health for New York City, 1954 to 1962, and later became an Assistant Director of the Agency for International Development (AID), a position she held until 1965. She was named Visiting Professor of Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Boston, in 1966, where she served until her retirement in 1972.

Leona Baumgartner was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1902 to Swiss immigrants William and Olga (Leisy) Baumgartner. The family relocated to Lawrence, Kansas in 1904 when William, a zoologist, accepted a faculty position at the University of Kansas. Baumgartner inherited her father’s keen interest in science and she received both a Bachelor’s degree in Bacteriology and a Master’s degree in Immunology from the University of Kansas in 1923 and 1925, respectively. During this time (and the years to follow), she served as a teacher at Colby (Kansas) Community High School. Following her education, Baumgartner was awarded a Rockefeller research fellowship at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, Munich, in 1928. Upon her return to the United States, Baumgartner enrolled at Yale University, where she subsequently received her Ph.D. in Immunology and her M.D. in 1934. Her internships in pediatrics during this time would be instrumental in shaping her career in public health, as she witnessed first hand the relationship between poverty and illness. In 1936, she joined the United States Public Health Service as Acting Assistant Surgeon before embarking on her long career with the City of New York in 1937.

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