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Notable New     Yorkers
Select     Notable New Yorker

Mary LaskerMary Lasker
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Q:

Except for this research in mice, but it didn't go beyond that.

Lasker:

Oh, the research in mice was miniscule and the Cancer Society didn't even support that. He had other support for that. The Cancer Society had been in business for 36 years and had never raised any money for research. It was also a medical club, as was the Heart Association at that time.

I asked Dr. Little how much the society was raising totally at this time, and he said they'd raised about 285,000 dollars in 1942; 372,000 in '43, as a result of their campaign that April. The Women's Field Army was an idea that he had developed, and as far as I can remember, only women raised any money. The organization was run by doctors as if it were a club. There were no women on the board of directors.

Q:

Was it nationally directed, or was it more or less New York?

Lasker:

It was directed out of this New York office. It had a board of New York doctors mostly, and a few doctors from other parts of the country, but no laymen were on the board whatever. But there was a Women's Field Army, with a director, which was a volunteer group, which raised such money as they had raised. Naturally, it was nothing. The women were associated with the Society for the purposes of fund raising and were a very well-intentioned group, but were led by the doctors and had no idea of raising any large amounts of money.

A million-dollar fund had been raised in the '30s





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