In 1893, Wald found her life’s work when she agreed to teach
a class in home nursing and hygiene to immigrant women on the Lower
East Side. One day, while teaching, a little girl approached Wald
and asked her to attend to her sick mother. The child led her
through the tenements,“over broken
roadways...between tall, reeking houses...across a court where open
and unscreened closets were promiscuously used by men and women,
up into a rear tenement, by slimy steps...and finally into the
sickroom” where Wald attended
to the child’s mother. Her encounter with the young girl’s family
prompted Wald to dedicate her life’s work to the tenement
community. Wald wrote,“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
that in itself would give me an organic relationship to the
neighborhood in which this awakening had come.”
With funding from philanthropists and
friends, Wald and Mary Brewster, her friend and colleague,
established the Visiting Nurses Service in 1893. By January 1894,
the two had visited over 125 families and offered advice to many
more. One year later, Wald moved to 265 Henry Street and founded
the renowned Henry Street Settlement House. |
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