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A story of two Walds
Lillian Wald (black and white photo, taken in 1927)
founded New York City’s Henry Street Nurse’s
Settlement on Manhattan’s Lower East Side
in 1893 to teach health and hygiene to newly arrived
immigrant women. Beginning with two nurses, the
settlement grew to 92 nurses by 1913 and offered
an array of social, recreational and educational
services to impoverished residents of the area.
In addition to establishing the Henry Street Settlement,
Wald helped found the National Organization for
Public Health Nursing and Columbia University’s
School of Nursing.
Florence Wald, featured in the Third Qtr. 2005
issue of Reflections on Nursing Leadership
(above, at right), began her nursing career in 1941
at the Henry Street Settlement and, 33 years later,
founded the first hospice in the United States.
(For more information, go to the Third Qtr. 2005
cover
story).
More recently, her focus has been on the development
of prison hospices.
The two Walds—they are not related—thus
contributed greatly to the growth and social impact
of the nursing profession. Today, more than a century
after Lillian Wald contributed to its founding,
the visiting nurse movement continues to serve the
health needs of the poor. In the United States alone,
more than 500 visiting nurse associations employ
more than 90,000 clinicians and provide health care
to more than 4 million people annually. And 32 years
after Florence Wald opened the first U.S. hospice
in New Haven, Conn., more than 3,200 hospices in
the United States provide end-of-life care to 600,000
people annually, with approximately one in four
Americans who die benefiting from their services.
Lillian Wald photo credit: Bettmann/CORBIS
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