Mary Woodard Lasker (November 30, 1900 – February 21, 1994) was a highly influential American health activist. She worked to raise funds for medical research, and founded the Lasker Foundation. Mary Lasker is a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1969 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 1989.
Born in Watertown, Wisconsin, Lasker attended the University of Wisconsin, Madison and graduated from Radcliffe College.
She was married to Lo...
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Mary Woodard Lasker (November 30, 1900 – February 21, 1994) was a highly influential American health activist. She worked to raise funds for medical research, and founded the Lasker Foundation. Mary Lasker is a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1969 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 1989.
Born in Watertown, Wisconsin, Lasker attended the University of Wisconsin, Madison and graduated from Radcliffe College.
She was married to Lord and Thomas advertising executive Albert Lasker (his third marriage). The Mary Woodard Lasker Award for Public Service was renamed in her honour in 2000.
Lady Bird Johnson wrote about Lasker numerous times in her book A White House Diary, calling her house "charming ... like a setting for jewels" and thanking her for gifts of daffodil bulbs for parkways along the Potomac River and for thousands of azalea bushes, flowering dogwood and other plants to put along Pennsylvania Avenue.
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