Mary A. Baker was a member of the Baptist denomination residing in Chicago, Illinois, where she was an active advocate in the temperance movement and a writer of sacred songs. She is best known as the author of the popular gospel hymn "Master, the tempest is raging," written in 1874 at the request of Dr. Horatio R. Palmer to accompany a series of Sunday school lessons on Christ stilling the tempest. Dr. Palmer set the text to music for his collection Songs of Love for the Bible School (1874), and it was subsequently published in Ira D. Sankey's Sacred Songs and Solos (1881). The hymn attained immense national prominence in the United States during the prolonged illness and ultimate death of President James A. Garfield in 1881, when it was sung at memorial services throughout the country. Miss Baker also authored the invitation hymn "Why perish with cold and with hunger," which was likewise set to music by Sankey.