Lillian Wald

Lillian Wald was an American nurse and social reformer who founded the Henry Street Settlement in New York City in 1893, bringing visiting-nurse care to poor immigrant families regardless of their ability to pay. She is credited with coining the term public health nurse, and she built partnerships, including one with the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, that established visiting-nurse models later copied nationwide, along with early school nursing programs aimed at prevention through hygiene education. During the 1918 influenza pandemic she chaired the Nurses' Emergency Council coordinating home care across the city, and beyond nursing she was active in child labor reform and was among the founders of the NAACP.