Westport’s “Neighbor and Crusader”
Lillian Wald (1867-1940)
Portrait of Lillian Wald (1920s). Courtesy, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
Lillian Wald, hailed for founding the Henry Street Settlement and Visiting Nurse Service of New York in 1893, is one of 11 women in the Hall of Great Americans—and the first Jewish inductee—honored for her service to mankind.
Duty, not fame, motivated this progressive woman from Rochester, NY. Wald helped thousands of immigrants from her rowhouse at 265 Henry Street—the heart of New York City’s “melting pot of nations”—where she lived from 1895 to 1937. She was skilled in arousing public opinion to build awareness of and solve pressing social ills—strikes, child labor, racial tolerance—and support world peace and woman’s full franchise.
In the 1910s, Wald hosted suffrage events at the Settlement and delivered addresses too. On November 4, 1915, she fed supportive “watchers and pickets” at Lower East Side assembly districts as men voted on New York State’s suffrage amendment. Although anti-suffragists won, Wald declared the local districts generally favored the “extension of democracy,” losing in the “very foreign” 4th district by 221 votes and the “solid foreign” 8th district by 64 votes.
In 1917, Wald came to Westport as a retreat from the city to live seasonally at “House on the Pond,” then all year long upon retirement. At both Henry Street and Westport, she entertained a steady line of guests, from the poor to nationally known to the most progressive voices of the day.
Activists, social workers and reformers Lillian Wald (left) and Jane Addams (1860-1935) were fast, lifetime friends and considered notable champions of woman’s suffrage. Addams also founded in 1899 a progressive settlement house, the Hull House in Chicago. The women, seen here lobbying at The White House in 1917, shared a belief in everything that related to the advancement of women, no matter their station, and a mission to improve life for struggling, poor newcomers to “the promised land” of America. Courtesy, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
Children on the steps of the Henry Street Settlement (n.d.). Courtesy, Jewish Women’s Archive, New York.
Aaron Rabinowitz, who immigrated with his parents from Russia in 1884, grew up on the Lower East Side and played a decisive part in the rebuilding of the area. As a child, he joined the Henry Street Settlement’s American Heroes Club. In 1937, the pioneer in New York City public and private housing and real estate moved to Westport with his wife, Clara (left), and daughters, Susan (Malloy) and Betty (Sheffer), to be near his mentor, Miss Wald (right), (1920s). Courtesy, Ann Sheffer.
James Daugherty (1889-1974), The House Itself (1934). Wald invited James Daugherty, one of her many Westport artist friends, to illustrate her second autobiography, Windows on Henry Street (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1934), a warm, human account of her 40 years of service. Courtesy, Ann Sheffer.