Mary Mallon
E418433
Mary Mallon, better known as "Typhoid Mary," was an asymptomatic typhoid fever carrier in the early 20th century whose refusal to stop working as a cook led to multiple outbreaks and her long-term quarantine by public health authorities.
All labels observed (2)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Typhoid Mary | 4 |
| Mary Mallon canonical | 3 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T4174269 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Mary Mallon Context triple: [North Brother Island, inmate, Mary Mallon]
-
A.
Florence Bates
Florence Bates was an American character actress known for her memorable supporting roles in classic Hollywood films of the 1940s and 1950s.
-
B.
Grace Stamper
Grace Stamper is the daughter of a deep-core driller and the romantic interest of an astronaut trainee in the 1998 science fiction disaster film "Armageddon."
-
C.
Mary Anne Grindall
Mary Anne Grindall was the wife of British civil servant, political reformer, and ornithologist Allan Octavian Hume.
-
D.
Mary Chester
Mary Chester was a British aristocrat best known as the wife of Robert Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool, who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in the early 19th century.
-
E.
Mary Shackelford
Mary Shackelford is the second ex-wife of comedian and television host Steve Harvey, with whom she was married in the 1990s and early 2000s.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Mary Mallon Target entity description: Mary Mallon, better known as "Typhoid Mary," was an asymptomatic typhoid fever carrier in the early 20th century whose refusal to stop working as a cook led to multiple outbreaks and her long-term quarantine by public health authorities.
-
A.
Florence Bates
Florence Bates was an American character actress known for her memorable supporting roles in classic Hollywood films of the 1940s and 1950s.
-
B.
Grace Stamper
Grace Stamper is the daughter of a deep-core driller and the romantic interest of an astronaut trainee in the 1998 science fiction disaster film "Armageddon."
-
C.
Mary Anne Grindall
Mary Anne Grindall was the wife of British civil servant, political reformer, and ornithologist Allan Octavian Hume.
-
D.
Mary Chester
Mary Chester was a British aristocrat best known as the wife of Robert Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool, who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in the early 19th century.
-
E.
Mary Shackelford
Mary Shackelford is the second ex-wife of comedian and television host Steve Harvey, with whom she was married in the 1990s and early 2000s.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (50)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
Irish immigrant
ⓘ
asymptomatic disease carrier ⓘ cook ⓘ historical figure ⓘ human ⓘ |
| alsoKnownAs |
Mary Mallon
ⓘ
surface form:
Typhoid Mary
|
| apprehendedBy |
New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene
ⓘ
surface form:
New York City Health Department
|
| associatedWithDisease | typhoid fever ⓘ |
| burialPlace | Saint Raymond’s Cemetery, Bronx, New York City, United States ⓘ |
| carriedPathogen | Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi ⓘ |
| causeOfDeath | pneumonia ⓘ |
| countryOfBirth | Ireland ⓘ |
| culturalImpact | her nickname “Typhoid Mary” became a term for a person who spreads misfortune or disease ⓘ |
| dateOfBirth | 1869-09-23 ⓘ |
| dateOfDeath | 1938-11-11 ⓘ |
| deniedBeingCarrier | true ⓘ |
| employedIn | New York City ⓘ |
| ethnicGroup | Irish ⓘ |
| familyName | Mallon ⓘ |
| firstMajorInvestigationYear | 1906 ⓘ |
| firstOutbreakYear | 1900 ⓘ |
| firstQuarantineEnd | 1910 ⓘ |
| firstQuarantineLocation |
North Brother Island
ⓘ
surface form:
North Brother Island, New York City, United States
|
| firstQuarantineStart | 1907 ⓘ |
| givenName | Mary ⓘ |
| immigratedTo |
United States of America
ⓘ
surface form:
United States
|
| immigrationYear | 1883 ⓘ |
| investigatedBy | George Soper NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| knownCasesLinked | at least 51 typhoid fever cases ⓘ |
| knownDeathsLinked | at least 3 deaths ⓘ |
| languageSpoken | English ⓘ |
| legacy | symbol of public health challenges in balancing individual rights and community safety ⓘ |
| mannerOfDeath | natural causes ⓘ |
| medicalCondition | asymptomatic typhoid carrier ⓘ |
| notableFor |
being the first identified asymptomatic carrier of Salmonella typhi in the United States
ⓘ
causing multiple typhoid fever outbreaks in New York through her work as a cook ⓘ |
| occupation |
cook
ⓘ
domestic servant ⓘ |
| placeOfBirth |
Cookstown, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland
ⓘ
surface form:
Cookstown, County Tyrone, Ireland
|
| placeOfDeath |
North Brother Island
ⓘ
surface form:
North Brother Island, New York City, United States
|
| refusedGallbladderSurgery | true ⓘ |
| releaseCondition | agreement not to work as a cook ⓘ |
| religion |
Roman Catholicism
ⓘ
surface form:
Roman Catholic
|
| secondQuarantineEnd | 1938 ⓘ |
| secondQuarantineLocation |
North Brother Island
ⓘ
surface form:
North Brother Island, New York City, United States
|
| secondQuarantineStart | 1915 ⓘ |
| sexOrGender | female ⓘ |
| timeInQuarantine | approximately 26 years in total ⓘ |
| violatedCondition | resumed work as a cook under assumed names ⓘ |
| workedAt | Sloane Maternity Hospital, Manhattan, New York City, United States ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Mary Mallon Description of subject: Mary Mallon, better known as "Typhoid Mary," was an asymptomatic typhoid fever carrier in the early 20th century whose refusal to stop working as a cook led to multiple outbreaks and her long-term quarantine by public health authorities.
Referenced by (7)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
this entity surface form:
Typhoid Mary
this entity surface form:
Typhoid Mary
this entity surface form:
Typhoid Mary
this entity surface form:
Typhoid Mary