Lillian Forest

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Lillian Forest

Lillian D. Wald (born March 10, 1867 in Cincinnati , Ohio , † September 1, 1940 in Westport , Connecticut ) was an American nurse and founder and long-time director of the social project Henry Street Settlement in New York City .

Life

After attending Miss Cruttenden's Boarding and Day School for Young Ladies in Rochester , Lillian Wald, who came from a German - Polish - Jewish family, began studying at the New York Hospital nursing school in 1883 and then worked as a nurse. In 1891 she began studying medicine at Women's Medical College . During her studies she was assigned to teach home nursing in the densely populated East Side of Manhattan .

She later discussed her arrival in the neighborhood in her memoir with the words:

"Across brittle roadways ... the bad smell of the past, open garbage cans, across a courtyard where open and unshielded toilets were used indiscriminately by men and women."
'Over broken roadways ... past evil-smelling, uncovered garbage cans ... across a court where open and unscreened closets [toilets] were promiscuously used by men and women.'

Affected by the conditions there, she decided to finish studying medicine and devote herself to nursing as a life's work. Together with fellow student Mary Brewster , she rented an apartment in a tenement house and in 1893 founded the Henry Street Visitin Nurse Service , which offered medical services to patients who could not afford to see a doctor financially and who only billed those who lived in were able to pay for it.

The pioneering social project Henry Street Settlement emerged from this nursing service . With the financial support of the banker Jakob Heinrich Schiff, this was expanded to new and larger residential quarters after 1895. Within a few years, the organization was providing health care to thousands of New Yorkers. In addition, for years the facility ran the city's first public nursing school and summer vacation camps for disadvantaged children.

Today Lillian Wald is considered to be the "founder of home nursing and social wards" in the USA and Canada.

She was also an outspoken pacifist , who also advocated the improvement of housing construction in poorer districts and the ban on child labor . In addition to being a member of the American Red Cross , she was also a co-founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909 and the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom in 1915.

Lillian Forest

After the death of Lillian Wald, who was the director of the Henry Street Settlement until 1930 , a credit institute and a psychiatric clinic were established within the organization .

She published her memories of the founding and work of the social project in two autobiographies : The House on Henry Street first appeared in 1911, followed by Windows on Henry Street in 1934 .

One of the most important Jewish-American figures of the 19th and 20th centuries , Lillian Wald was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame one hundred years after the establishment of the Henry Street Settlement in 1993 . She was honored, among other things, by the posthumous induction into the Hall of Fame for Great Americans in New York City .

Web links and sources

Background literature

  • RL Duffus: Lillian Wald: Neighbor and Crusader , New York City (Macmillan Co.), 1938
  • Beryl Williams Epstein: Lillian Wald: Angel of Henry Street , New York City (J. Messner), 1948
  • Beatrice Siegel: Lillian Wald of Henry Street , Collier Macmillan, 1983
  • Nora Berkley Krug: "That damned nurse troublemaker": Lillian Wald, from nursing to politics Durham, NC (Duke University Press), 1992
  • Doris Groshen Daniels: Always a Sister: The Feminism of Lillian D. Wald , Feminist Press, 1995
  • Volker Klimpel : Lillian Wald . In: Hubert Kolling (Hrsg.): Biographical lexicon on nursing history “Who was who in nursing history” , Volume four, Urban & Fischer 2008, p. 323 f.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Volker Klimpel: Lillian forest . In: Hubert Kolling (Hrsg.): Biographical lexicon on nursing history “Who was who in nursing history” , Volume four, Urban & Fischer 2008, p. 323 f.
personal data
SURNAME Forest, Lillian
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wald, Lillian D.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American nurse and social activist
DATE OF BIRTH March 10, 1867
PLACE OF BIRTH Cincinnati , Ohio
DATE OF DEATH September 1, 1940
Place of death Westport , Connecticut