author
Lillian D. Wald
1867–1940
A pioneering nurse and social reformer, she helped change how America cared for poor families in crowded city neighborhoods. Her work at Henry Street Settlement made public health nursing, school nursing, and community-based care part of everyday life.
1 Audiobook
The house on Henry Street
by Lillian D. Wald
About the author
Born in Cincinnati in 1867 and raised partly in Rochester, New York, she trained as a nurse and moved to New York City at a time when many immigrant families on the Lower East Side lived in severe poverty. A home visit to care for a sick mother in a tenement became a turning point, convincing her that health care had to reach people where they lived.
In 1893, she co-founded the Henry Street Settlement, which grew from visiting nursing work into a major center for health, education, and social services. She is widely remembered as a founder of public health nursing in the United States and as an early force behind school nursing, along with broader campaigns for better housing, child welfare, labor reform, and civil rights.
She also wrote about her experiences, leaving a record of practical compassion tied to social change. When she died in 1940, she had already helped shape ideas about community care that still feel modern today.