The Henry Street Settlement and Lillian Wald
One hundred years ago today … A visiting nurses program run by the Henry Street Settlement House was soliciting donations by putting ads in the newspapers, and was not ashamed to use a bit of sentimentality and a bit of ethnic stereotyping to make its case.
New York Tribune 16 Mar. 1920, p. 9. Newspapers.com.
A week after the advertisement above appeared, Henry Street Settlement founder Lillian Wald was fêted at the Neighborhood Playhouse.
Lillian Wald in 1920. Photo by Harris & Ewing. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
New York Herald, Mar. 1920, p. 9. Newspapers.com.
The organization was based at 265 Henry Street on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, now a landmarked site. It has, since 1893, provided health and a variety of community services, at first to its impoverished neighborhood, and eventually throughout the borough–as suggested in the advertisement’s map.
Knitting class, Henry Street Settlement. 1910. Hine, Lewis Wickes, photographer. National Child Labor Committee collection, Library of Congress.