Visiting Nurse Service of New York
"Over broken asphalt, over dirty mattresses and heaps of refuse we went... There were two rooms and a family of seven not only lived here but shared their quarters with boarders... [I felt] ashamed of being a part of society that permitted such conditions to exist... What I had seen had shown me where my path lay."
Lillian Wald, The House on Henry Street
Lillian Wald, The House on Henry Street
Source: VSNY
In the late winter of 1893, Lillian Wald volunteered to teach a course in home nursing for immigrants at a Sabbath school in New York's Lower East Side. One morning, a call for help came from the daughter of one of her immigrant students, Mrs. Lipsky. Wald followed the girl to her family's tenement where she found her mother lying in a bed drenched with blood.
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Lillian Wald treated the woman and aided the family. This event catalyzed the created the creation of the Visiting Nurse Service of New York and the Henry Street Settlement.
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"that morning's experience was a baptism of fire. Deserted were the laboratory and academic work of college. I never returned to them... I rejoiced that I had a training in the care of the sick..."
Lillian Wald, The House on Henry Street |
Lillian Wald, The House on Henry Street
Mary Brewster, Friend and Colleague
Source: Lillian Wald, 1915
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With funding from Mrs. Solomon Loeb and Jacob Schiff, Lillian Wald and her colleague, Mary Brewster, established the Visiting Nurse Service of New York in 1893. The service cared for illnesses and assisted with births and deaths.
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