1. Mary Woodard Lasker was an American health activist and philanthropist.
11 Facts About Mary Lasker
1. 2.
Mary Lasker worked to raise funds for medical research and founded the Lasker Foundation.
3.
Mary Lasker attended the University of Wisconsin, Madison and graduated from Radcliffe College with a major in Art History.
4.
Mary Lasker worked as an art dealer at Reinhardt Galleries in New York City.
5.
The Mary Lasker Award is considered the most prestigious American award in medical research.
6.
Mary Lasker played major roles in promoting and expanding the National Institutes of Health, helping its budget expand by a factor of 2000 times from $2.4 million in 1945 to $5.5 billion in 1985.
7.
Mary Lasker was prominent in lobbying Eleanor Roosevelt to endorse Lyndon Johnson's efforts to become the 1960 Democratic nominee.
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Mary Lasker was instrumental in getting the US government to fund the War on Cancer in 1971.
9.
On September 15,1971, Mrs Mary Lasker was elected to the Board of Directors of Braniff Airways, Incorporated.
10.
Mary Lasker 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.
11.
Mary Lasker is a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1969, the Four Freedoms Award 1987 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 1989.