Lillian Wald

Lillian D. Wald (1867–1940) was an American nurse and social worker, and employment agent, most active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Wald was born into a comfortable, German-Jewish middle-class family in Cincinnati, Ohio (Her father was an optical dealer.) In 1878, she moved with her family to Rochester, New York. She attended Miss Cruttenden's English-French Boarding and Day School for Young Ladies, and upon graduation, tried to enter Vassar but was denied, as the school thought her too young, at 16. Several years later, however, she went on to attend New York Hospital's School of Nursing.

In 1893, after a trying time at an orphanage where children were maltreated, she started to teach a home class on nursing for Lower East Side (New York) women. Not long thereafter, she began to care for sick residents of the Lower East Side, and soon decided to devote her life to this cause. Along with another nurse, Mary Brewster, she moved into a spartan room near her patients, in order to care for them better. She was the founder of the Henry Street Settlement which later attracted the attention of Jacob Schiff, a philanthropist who secretly provided her the means to help more effectively the "poor Russian Jews" whose care she made her life's mission. She was able to expand her work later, having 27 nurses helping her by 1906. She never married, preferring to devote herself fully to her career. She authored two books relating to this work, the first being The House on Henry Street, first published in 1911, followed by Windows on Henry Street in 1934. Both books went through numerous printings and today modern reprints are available in both hard and paperback editions. Today, Lillian Wald is widely regarded as the founder of visiting nursing in the United States and Canada.

She died in 1940. Many people mourned the loss of the dedicated nurse and immigrant reformer.

Reference

 * World of Our Fathers. Irving Howe. (1989 Schocken Books) pgs. 90-94 ISBN 0-8052-0928-X