WALD, Lillian D.

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The House on Henry Street. First edition, first printing, presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, "To a dear mother and her daughter who helped us to understand many things in our first days. Lilian D. Wald to Mrs. O'Reilly and Leonora, New York Nov. 10/15".Wald was a pioneering nurse who founded the Henry Street Settlement, a social service agency in New York. She encouraged various young reformers to experiment with ventures in the settlement. One was the feminist labor leader Leonora O'Reilly (1870-1927), who in 1897 founded a model garment worker's co-operative in the settlement. Leonora and her mother Winnifred lived together in the settlement and were a key part of the group.Wald reminiscences about them in this book, which is her account of the Settlement. "My associates and I, in the early years of the settlement, owed much to a mother and daughter of singularly lofty mind and character, both working women, who for a time joined the settlement family. They had been affiliated with labor organizations almost all their lives. The ardor of the daughter continually prodded us to action, and the clear-minded, intelligent mother helped us to a completer [sic] realization of the deep-lying causes that had inspired Mazzini and other great leaders, whose works we were re-reading" (p. 208).

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