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Wald, Lillian D. (1867-1940). American public health nurse and social reformer. Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, daughter of a dealer in optical goods, Wald attended Miss Crittenden’s English-French Boarding and Day School, Rochester, New York, and applied to Vassar College at the age of 16. She was rejected because she was considered too young, but six years later, in 1889, Wald entered the New York training school for nurses, graduating in 1891. Nurse, New York Juvenile Asylum, 1891-2, then enrolled in the Woman’s Medical College, New York, 1893. While studying there, Wald began to organize home nursing classes for immigrant families on Lower East Side, New York. She determined now to become a public health nurse and, giving up her medical studies, organized the first visiting nurse service and with a colleague, Mary Brewster, established a Nurses’ Settlement at Henry Street, Lower East Side. The Henry Street Settlement included, besides home visiting, first aid posts and convalescence facilities, and this experiment was copied by many cities in the United States. In 1902, Wald was able to persuade the New York Board of Health to institute the first public school nursing programme in the country and was the prime mover in the establishment of the department of nursing and health, Teachers College, Columbia University, 1910, with Mary Adelaide Nutting as chairman. First president, National Organization for Public Health Nursing, 1912. Wald was equally active in the social settlement movement. The Henry Street Settlement later offered, besides health care, vocational training and guidance and it also granted scholarships for promising pupils in order to be able to remain at school until 16. Wald took up many civic and other causes, including the plight of the handicapped child in the public school system, the establishment of more parks and playgrounds and the need for more protection for child labour, leading to the founding of the Federal Children’s Bureau in 1912. She supported women’s suffrage and, when the First World War broke out, organized with others, including Jane Addams, the American Union Against Militarism, but after the United States entered the war, became head of the committee on home nursing, Council of National Defence. Wald died at Westport, Connecticut, aged 77 in 1940. See her The House on Henry Street (1915); Windows on Henry Street (1934), and Coss, C., Lillian D. Wald, Progressive Activist (1989).