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Speaker 1: Welcome to this Day in History class. I'm Eves and

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Speaker 1: today is March nineteen, and we'll be continuing our recognition

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Speaker 1: of Women's History Month with another special guest who's coming

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Speaker 1: onto the show today to talk about Lillian Wald. Lillian

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Speaker 1: Wald was born on this day in eighteen sixty seven.

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Speaker 1: She was an American nurse, a social worker, and an author.

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Speaker 1: Our special guest today is Marjorie Field, who teaches history

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Speaker 1: at Babson College. Hi Marjorie, how are you? I'm good?

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Speaker 1: How are you? I'm good? Thank you for asking. So

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Speaker 1: can you just start off by telling me a little

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Speaker 1: bit about yourself and how you got into Lillian Wald? Oh? Sure.

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Speaker 1: So when I was in college, I was really excited

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Speaker 1: by a historian who taught me my junior in college

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Speaker 1: and it was, of course, today we would call it

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Speaker 1: gender history, but back then it was called women's history.

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Speaker 1: And I decided that when I was going to do

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Speaker 1: a senior thesis, it was going to cross both of

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Speaker 1: my majors, which by then were Judaic studies, Jewish studies,

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Speaker 1: and U S History. So I was looking for a

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Speaker 1: topic with my advisor, who was this marvelous women's history professor,

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Speaker 1: and she recommended this woman named Lilian Wald, whom she

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Speaker 1: knew would cross both Jewish history because she was Jewish

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Speaker 1: at birth, and also would cross US history because she

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Speaker 1: was really invested in US currents of progressive era activism.

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Speaker 1: So I took this on as my senior thesis in

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Speaker 1: college and then decided that I liked history so much

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Speaker 1: I wanted to go on to get a doctorate in history.

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Speaker 1: I got into a program in New England and ended

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Speaker 1: up doing a doctoral thesis on Lilian Wald that built

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Speaker 1: on my honor thesis. And then when I got a job,

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Speaker 1: I turned the doctoral dissertation into a book, and that

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Speaker 1: was the book that was published by U n C

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Speaker 1: in UM two thousand and eight. So I've spent many,

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Speaker 1: many years with Wald. I generally introduced in forums where

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Speaker 1: I talked about Wald as somebody who spent a lot

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Speaker 1: of time with Wald, and indeed I have. So can

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Speaker 1: you tell me who was Lilian Wald? Sure? So she

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Speaker 1: was born in eighteen sixty seven, after the Civil War,

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Speaker 1: and she was born in Ohio, but she always thought

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Speaker 1: of her hometown as Rochester, New York, which is where

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Speaker 1: she was raised. She moved there when she was young.

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Speaker 1: She was the child of immigrants, German Jewish immigrants who were,

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Speaker 1: you know, relatively americanized and assimilated, weren't particularly Jewishly affiliated,

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Speaker 1: although her grandparents were, and she was a little bit,

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Speaker 1: which I talked about in the biography. She very early

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Speaker 1: on in her life decided that she didn't want to

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Speaker 1: be a society wife like her moms and aunts and

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Speaker 1: even her older sister, and she decided once she saw

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Speaker 1: her sister giving birth that she wanted She sort of

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Speaker 1: chatted with the nurse who was attending her sister's child's birth,

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Speaker 1: and she decided she wanted to be a nurse. So

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Speaker 1: she ended up going to one of the few careers

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Speaker 1: was available to women at the time was to become

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Speaker 1: a nurse. So she went to nursing school. And after

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Speaker 1: nursing school she graduated, she ended up going to a

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Speaker 1: school where she could have been a doctor. It was

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Speaker 1: one of the few women's medical colleges open at the time,

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Speaker 1: and so this was her first exposure to New York City.

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Speaker 1: Because she was an upstate person, I don't think it's

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Speaker 1: a mistake that she shows a women's world. She was

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Speaker 1: a lesbian, She was very nurtured and sustained by these

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Speaker 1: women's relationships. Um While she was there, she was exposed

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Speaker 1: for the first time to the poverty of the Lower

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Speaker 1: east Side, which was then at the turn of the

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Speaker 1: twenty century just completely overwhelmed with immigrants who were fueling

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Speaker 1: the industrial growth of the United States, garment trades and

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Speaker 1: other industries, and a lot of well she herself, and

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Speaker 1: then since then many others quote her when they talk

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Speaker 1: about this experience as her baptism of fire Right. So

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Speaker 1: she's young, and she's got these nursing skills, and she's

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Speaker 1: exposed to the poverty of the Lower eas Side for

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Speaker 1: the first time, and basically she decides to settle on

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Speaker 1: the Lower east Side and open what was called a

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Speaker 1: settlement house. First they offered nursing care to the immigrants,

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Speaker 1: the industrial immigrants of the Lower east Side, and it

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Speaker 1: just expanded, and her work, begun in the eighteen nineties,

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Speaker 1: is now still living. The legacies live on at both

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Speaker 1: Visiting Their Service of New York and Henry Street Settlement,

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Speaker 1: which is still on the Lower east Side. So it

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Speaker 1: was healthcare on a sliding fee scale, often for free

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Speaker 1: for the desperately poor. That then expanded into social work

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Speaker 1: and theater work. And all the kinds of things that

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Speaker 1: you still see flourishing at Henry Street, which is turning

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Speaker 1: this year. It's a great place. Um. Yeah, So I

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Speaker 1: say this because her legacy lies in nursing and social work,

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Speaker 1: but also in a sort of like marvelous universalist philosophy

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Speaker 1: that says that everybody, even a relatively wealthy white woman

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Speaker 1: from upstate New York, has a responsibility to help people

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Speaker 1: who are less fortunate and born into less fortunate circumstances.

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Speaker 1: That was her philosophy that guided her nursing and her

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Speaker 1: social work. And she protested war, she fought for women's suffrage,

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Speaker 1: She was a civil rights advocate, she was an immigrant

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Speaker 1: rights advocate. She took the side of labor in many

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Speaker 1: labor disputes. She really tried to apply that philosophy across

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Speaker 1: the board to all these really important twentieth century campaigns.

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Speaker 1: You know, we're that we're still benefiting from in many

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Speaker 1: different ways today. So what was it about her that

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Speaker 1: made her advocate this hard for so many people? Like

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Speaker 1: so many people were exposed to poverty and maybe had

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Speaker 1: backgrounds and nursing as well, but they didn't do the

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Speaker 1: things that Lilian Wall did. So what was it about

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Speaker 1: her that that drove her to be the person she was. Well,

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Speaker 1: you know, when you write a book about somebody, you

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Speaker 1: try to dig deep into their motivations, right, And so

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Speaker 1: my sort of scholarly take on that was that because

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Speaker 1: her family had benefited from a pretty liberal um spirit

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Speaker 1: of the times in upstate New York as Jewish immigrants,

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Speaker 1: it was a pretty liberal place that was Erie Canal

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Speaker 1: was connected to Rochester. There were abolitionist campaigns and Rochester

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Speaker 1: women's rights campaigns. That spirit of sort of liberal tolerance

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Speaker 1: and acceptance. I think she carried with her and brought

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Speaker 1: with her to New York. I think also, you know,

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Speaker 1: she was in very much a women's world. It was

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Speaker 1: so attractive to me when I was young, um, to

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Speaker 1: think about all these women trying to find a place

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Speaker 1: for themselves, right as women, without even having the right

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Speaker 1: to vote. So I think there was a sense that

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Speaker 1: women were responsible for care and nurturing, and so they

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Speaker 1: took that, you know, almost imperative, but certainly that sort

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Speaker 1: of conventional idea out into the public sphere and thought

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Speaker 1: of themselves as needing to care for these immigrants and

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Speaker 1: the you know, to undue white supremacy, like they could

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Speaker 1: have that power if society would be willing to give

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Speaker 1: it to them. So they carved up the space for

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Speaker 1: themselves trying to do this work. Mhm. How did she

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Speaker 1: change the fields of nursing and public health whilst he

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Speaker 1: was working? Yeah, so, I mean when she was involved,

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Speaker 1: she was one of the first Jewish nurses to be professional.

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Speaker 1: First of all, it was largely Christian nurses. It was

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Speaker 1: also a lot of charity organizations employed nurses. She was

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Speaker 1: very intent on having them separate from any charity work.

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Speaker 1: She wrote early on about the fact that they carried

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Speaker 1: municipal badges, so they were seen as, you know, sort

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Speaker 1: of employees, not technically but of the city, but having

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Speaker 1: that official status. She really wanted public health to be

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Speaker 1: seen as a right of citizenship for all people. So

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Speaker 1: I think if we think about it today, like the

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Speaker 1: language of today would be I think more holistic, Like

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Speaker 1: she thought everybody was entitled to the right, not just

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Speaker 1: to healthcare. But ultimately she was working like many them

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Speaker 1: in again very gendered for playgrounds in New York City,

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Speaker 1: which didn't exist before she got there. For um safe milk,

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Speaker 1: because you would get milk from milk stations at the

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Speaker 1: time before refrigeration was widespread. So I think she professionalized it.

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Speaker 1: She made it obvious something that country still hasn't learned,

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Speaker 1: that health care should be a human rights right. But

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Speaker 1: she also had a very holistic approach to it to

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Speaker 1: see that it wasn't these people's fault that they were poor,

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Speaker 1: but it was the environment that was leading to you know,

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Speaker 1: it was deprivation that was to blame for all of

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Speaker 1: the problems, um, criminality and other kinds of sort of

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Speaker 1: desperate products of the poverty that they were living with

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Speaker 1: day in and day out. So she I think she

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Speaker 1: had a sort of a right way of thinking about things,

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Speaker 1: which is to uplift people and to give them their

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Speaker 1: basic rights and people will make good choices and help

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Speaker 1: others and better society as a whole. It was part

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Speaker 1: of her sort of universalist velocity, I think. So you

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Speaker 1: mentioned earlier a little bit about the legacy, her legacy

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Speaker 1: that lives in the Settlement House. Is there any other

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Speaker 1: way that her work shows up today in nursing are

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Speaker 1: beyond It's a good question. I mean, her settlement. I

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Speaker 1: just love Henry Street so much, and they just put

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Speaker 1: up an exhibit for the anniversary that really draws a

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Speaker 1: spotlight on her. So that institution is still in its

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Speaker 1: original home, the staircase that it was there. You know,

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Speaker 1: of course a lot of the long time employees think

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Speaker 1: it's haunted. So whether she shows up there or not, actually, um,

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Speaker 1: I think in nursing, in social work, certainly in gendered history, right.

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Speaker 1: I also think as we go back and try to

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Speaker 1: think of lgbt Q heroes, you know, she alerts us

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Speaker 1: to this very sustaining world of women in the early

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Speaker 1: twentieth century. I also, you know, with this past election

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Speaker 1: of our president, I was asked to talk about her

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Speaker 1: in a quite a few venues, right, to talk about

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Speaker 1: her approach to immigrant rights, which I think is always

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Speaker 1: a lesson, maybe never more urgent than it is right now,

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Speaker 1: at least in my lifetime, because she the quote I

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Speaker 1: always go back to, she called immigrants new life and

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Speaker 1: new blood for this country, and just talking about the

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Speaker 1: energy that they bring to the United States and get

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Speaker 1: living in a time when that immigrants are demonized and

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Speaker 1: their contributions are erased or made invisible. I think that's

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Speaker 1: a really important lesson that she still offers us to.

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Speaker 1: M HM, Is there anything that she did or maybe

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Speaker 1: said that may surprise people in a good way. Well,

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Speaker 1: I mean, you know, again, when you are doing this research,

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Speaker 1: you try to present all sides of the person um,

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Speaker 1: and she held onto Stalinism into the nineteen thirties, which

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Speaker 1: I don't know if that means a lot to your listeners,

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Speaker 1: but you know, it's kind of a long time to

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Speaker 1: hold onto the ideal without wrecking zing the evils that

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Speaker 1: Stalin was doing. And that might be surprising. I think

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Speaker 1: among liberals and leftists in the United States. It wasn't

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Speaker 1: entirely uncommon, but it was when I remember, you know,

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Speaker 1: finding out in graduate school and feeling a sense of

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Speaker 1: disappointment with my hero, but also recognizing, you know, that

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Speaker 1: she was a human and made errors and judgment. Um.

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Speaker 1: I think people are often surprised to learn that she

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Speaker 1: was gay, But again, I think there's so much room

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Speaker 1: for heroes of all kinds in our past. But it's

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Speaker 1: a helpful thing to talk about when you talk about

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Speaker 1: her legacy. Yeah, I think that that's the thing that

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Speaker 1: a lot of people are struggling with right now, recognizing

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Speaker 1: people's whole lives and that people were complicated and trying

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Speaker 1: to deal with all the elements of the things that

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Speaker 1: they believe, their philosophies and that they did. So what

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Speaker 1: do you want people to take away from Lillian Wall's

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Speaker 1: story overall? Well, I think, you know, as I say,

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Speaker 1: the lessons about her lessons on immigration and a certain

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Speaker 1: openness and the way we can all benefit from that

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Speaker 1: openness is maybe her most urgent lesson today. But I

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Speaker 1: also would argue that argue, but I would point out

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Speaker 1: that here is somebody born to privilege who made these

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Speaker 1: choices based on her conscience, but more than that, right,

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Speaker 1: But it wasn't just about her sense like this is

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Speaker 1: wrong and someone needs to do it, and that someone

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Speaker 1: could be me. It was also she always used this

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Speaker 1: language of mutual responsibility. And you know, you see this

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Speaker 1: in Gandhi's writings and Dr King's writings, this idea that

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Speaker 1: you know, if one of us isn't free, then none

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Speaker 1: of us are free. And I think Wald brought that

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Speaker 1: into her social work, into her public health work, in

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Speaker 1: her anti militarism, her work for civil rights and immigrant rights.

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Speaker 1: So I would say that that sense of mutual responsibility

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Speaker 1: is really key to her legacy and also has a

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Speaker 1: certain urgency today it's easy to shelter ourselves off from

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Speaker 1: the things that are bad in the world and the

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Speaker 1: suffering in the world, but it it is our obligation

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Speaker 1: to look hard at it and figure out our own

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Speaker 1: role in on doing some of those evils. I guess

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Speaker 1: that's what I would say. And when she was working,

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Speaker 1: did she get any pushback from people from anybody who

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Speaker 1: criticized her or you know, had strong reactions to the

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Speaker 1: work that she was doing. Oh, definitely, yes, of course

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Speaker 1: she I mean again, so I was working with some

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Speaker 1: of the criticisms. I probably didn't engage as much as

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Speaker 1: new scholars will find. But some people thought her work

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Speaker 1: should be more Jewish. There were those who really wanted

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Speaker 1: to claim her for the Jewish world, which she really

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Speaker 1: pushed back against. She was born to a Jewish family

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Speaker 1: but never really affiliated. So I think the idea that

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Speaker 1: people get to choose their own identities right and liberate

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Speaker 1: themselves from the ones that they feel don't fit with

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Speaker 1: their sense of themselves, I think that's important. Um. So,

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Speaker 1: the other piece that I ran into, and this is

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Speaker 1: pretty common knowledge, is that when she fought against us

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Speaker 1: UM involved in the World War One, she lost funding

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Speaker 1: from some pretty famous people. They really thought that the

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Speaker 1: US was justified in getting involved. But she, interestingly fascinatingly

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Speaker 1: understood war to work against the interest of all people.

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Speaker 1: She knew that spending that might well have gone towards

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Speaker 1: public health initiatives was going to be diverted into militarism

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Speaker 1: and weapons and fighting. So she really talked about being

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Speaker 1: anti war in the vein of being for public health,

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Speaker 1: which is, you know, so radical. I mean, I think

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Speaker 1: we more associate that kind of thinking with Johnson's War

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Speaker 1: on Poverty and people understanding that the War on Poverty

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Speaker 1: funds were diverted into Vietnam. But here's somebody having that

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Speaker 1: conversation putting that into the public sphere around World War One,

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Speaker 1: which is pretty radical. Yeah, it's her story so interesting

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Speaker 1: because there are so many parallels and this was a

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Speaker 1: century ago. So is there anything else that you would

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Speaker 1: like to add, anything about Lily in valved or anything

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Speaker 1: that you've been thinking about that that came up while

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Speaker 1: we were talking. I don't think so. I just I'm

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Speaker 1: really glad we're talking about her, because, as you say,

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Speaker 1: I think she's I teach a course on the nineteen

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Speaker 1: twenties and a century ago, things were so bad in

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Speaker 1: this country. I mean lynching and the Red Scare and

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Speaker 1: crackdowns on immigrants, and we're living through an era that

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Speaker 1: is so frightening in terms of the way state power

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Speaker 1: is being used to oppress and marginalize and sanctioned violence

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Speaker 1: against women, against immigrants, against LGBTQ. So I would say that,

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Speaker 1: you know, she stood for kind of the best of

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Speaker 1: what state power can do, which can connect and enlighten

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Speaker 1: and uplift rather than push down. Yes, true, Yeah, I'm

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Speaker 1: glad that we got to talk about her today and

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Speaker 1: shared her story with everybody, because I'm sure there are

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Speaker 1: a lot of people who had no idea about her.

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Speaker 1: So thank you again. If you're coming on the show, well,

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Speaker 1: thank you so much for inviting me. I really appreciate it.

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Speaker 1: If you want to know more about Lilian Wald, you

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Speaker 1: can read Marjorie's book, Lilian Walt, a biography. You can

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Speaker 1: be on the lookout for more special episodes on Sundays

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Speaker 1: this month to honor women's contributions to history. But until then,

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Speaker 1: see tomorrow for another nugget from history. H