Why the U.S. Should Celebrate the Birthday of Lillian Wald on March 10

Washington , DC – The U.S. should proclaim a national holiday and celebrate the birthday of Lillian Wald who was born on March 10, 1867, asserts Val J. Halamandaris the President of the National Association for Home Care & Hospice (NAHC) and the founder of the Caring Institute. 

“Even a cursory examination of the record will show that her contributions to society equal or surpass such appropriately venerated women as Susan B. Anthony, Clara Barton and Margaret Sanger. Ms. Wald deserves to be better remembered and honored,” said Halamandaris. “She was a nurse, social worker, public health official, teacher, author, editor, publisher, women's rights activist and the founder of the American community nursing movement.” 

Ms. Wald was born on March 10, 1867, in Cincinnati, Ohio, the third of four children born to Max and Minnie Schwartz Wald. The family moved to Rochester, New York, and Wald received her education in private schools.

In 1889, Wald met a young nurse who impressed her so much that she decided to study nursing. She graduated from New York City Hospital and enrolled in medical school. At the same time, she volunteered to provide nursing services to the immigrants and the poor living in New York's tenements. Visiting pregnant women, the elderly and the disabled in their homes, Wald came to the conclusion that there was a crisis in need of immediate redress. She quit medical school and moved into a house on Henry Street in order to live among those who so desperately needed help. In 1893, she organized the Henry Street Settlement, otherwise known as the Visiting Nurse Society (VNS) of New York. The VNS program became the model for similar entities across America and the world.

Wald began with no money and 10 nurses, which increased to 250 nurses and a budget of $600,000 by 1916. Wald and her colleagues visited the poor in their five-story walk-up coldwater flats. They educated residents about personal hygiene. They provided preventive, acute and long-term health care and, later, assistance with housing and employment.

But Wald's innovations did not stop with the VNS. She persuaded the New York Board of Education to require that all schools have a nurse on duty during school hours. She persuaded President Theodore Roosevelt to create a Federal Children's Bureau to protect children from abusive child labor. She lobbied successfully to change the divorce laws so the abandoned spouse could receive compensation in the form of alimony. She helped form the Women's Trade Union League to protect women from having to work in “sweatshops.”

Wald also worked to secure the right of women to vote and supported her employee and protégé, Margaret Sanger, in her battle to give women the right to birth control. She fought for peace, leading several marches in protest of World War I; but when war became inevitable, she pitched in to do her part as chairman of the Committee on Community Nursing of the American Red Cross. She helped chair the Red Cross campaign to wipe out the influenza epidemic of 1918 and worked to require health inspections in the workplace in order to protect workers.

Another of her major achievements was persuading Columbia University to appoint the first professor of nursing at a U.S. college or university. Until that time, nursing had been taught in hospitals and consisted largely of supervised work experience; Wald insisted nursing education take place in universities, augmented by practical experience.

In 1922, Wald was named in The New York Times as one of the 12 greatest living American women. In 1932, she was chosen by historian J. Addams as one of the top 12 American women leaders in the past century. In 1936, she was proclaimed the Outstanding Citizen of New York. Wald died on Sept. 1, 1940, but her legacy lives on in the institutions she helped build and the causes for which she fought. In the 115 years since she gave it birth the New York VNS has grown from a staff of 10 to 12,000; the revenue from zero to $1 billion a year; and the number of people served increased from 18,000 a year to about 3.5 million a year. During the same time frame the number of home care community nursing programs has increased from seven to more than 25,000 today.

Wald chose never to marry but she has millions of progeny today in the form of the home care and hospice nurses, therapists and aides who were motivated to follow in her footsteps. Emulating Longfellow's admonition, she chose to leave footsteps in the sands of time. Wald summarized her beliefs saying, “Nursing is love in action and there is no finer manifestation of it than the care of the aged and disabled in their own homes.” 

Halamandaris said the nation should begin plans to celebrate Wald's 150th birthday on March 10, 2017, with a joint session of Congress. “Congress may wish to consider her for the Congressional Medal of Honor, the nation's highest honor,” said Halamandaris. “Actually, it is a happy coincidence that the U.S. in the same year, 2017, will celebrate both the 150th birthday of Lillian Wald and the 200th birthday of Frederick Douglass, the great human rights advocate. We should make the most of this opportunity.”

NOTE: Lillian Wald's biographical information contained in this press release was excerpted from the book, Faces of Caring, a compilation of the 100 most caring people in history, edited and compiled by Val J. Halamandaris and published by Caring Publishing.

The National Association for Home Care & Hospice represents the interests of more than 25,000 home care agencies, home care aide organizations, hospices and U.S. hospitals that provide home care as well as the two million nurses, aides, therapists, managers and IT personnel who provide care to more than eight million Americans every year. A partial list of the services home care organizations provide to keep seniors and disabled persons independent in their own homes include skilled nursing care, physical therapy, speech therapy, occupational therapy, physician services, home care aide services, personal care, meal preparation, supervision of medication, telehealth services, home modifications; i.e., to adapt a home to accommodate the use of a wheelchair, shopping, transportation and financial services. Home care helps patients and their families regain their equilibrium after hospitalization or an acute health episode, it helps them with their rehabilitation, it assists them to adapt their home environment and change their lifestyle so as to prevent additional hospitalizations and health crises, it helps them to manage their chronic diseases and to keep these from manifesting as disabilities; if and when they do become intractable, home care teaches patients to manage their disabilities. When the end of life is near, hospice, a specialized form of home care, helps clients to live fully until the end of their days, to manage their pain and finish their unfinished business as well as help their families to cope with the loss of a loved one. For more information, visit NAHC's Web site at www.nahc.org.