Immigrant Health, Health Services, and History University Module
Class
About this Module
Class 2: Health Care for Immigrant Neighbors
Introduction:
This class examines the Henry Street Visiting Nurse Service, founded by nurses Lillian Wald and Mary Brewster in 1893 to bring health care to the immigrant neighborhoods of New York’s Lower East Side. Students will study Henry Street’s work in addressing major problems of immigrant health, including infant mortality, tuberculosis, and sanitation, and Wald’s ideas about the role of nurses in promoting social reform.
Class Resources
Readings
- National Library of Medicine. Henry Street photographs in Outside / Inside: Digital Gallery.
- “Miss Kramer takes care of a very sick baby with pneumonia”
- “Miss Pearson with a Chinese family in her district”
- “These children on their return from preventorium taught their mother how to give them the right care”
- “Fordham Hospital Mothers’ Club. Miss Jeffrey teaches a lesson”
- “A Gun Hill car in the district, Miss Kramer, driver”
- “Miss Kirkwood, student; Miss Weaver, Miss Gruschow, Miss Jeffrey”
- “Her son and twin babies”
- Bulletin of Instruction: Visiting Nurse Service Administered by Henry Street Settlement. New York, NY: Central House, 1922. https://collections.nlm.nih.gov/bookviewer?PID=nlm:nlmuid-101513896-bk.
- Wald, Lillian. “Best Helps to the Immigrant Through the Nurse.” American Journal of Nursing Vol. 8, No. 6 (March 1908), 464–468.
- Fee, Elizabeth and Liping Bu. “The Origins of Public Health Nursing: The Henry Street Visiting Nurse Service.” American Journal of Public Health Vol. 100, No. 7 (July 2010), 1206–1207. doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2009.186049, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2882394/.
- Visiting Nurse Service of New York. https://www.vnsny.org.
Discussion Questions
- Browse through the Henry Street photographs and the Visiting Nurse Service Bulletin of Instruction. What kinds of care did Henry Street nurses provide? To what extent did the nurses’ activities attempt to address the health and social problems of immigrant neighborhoods studied in Class 1?
- Discuss this statement (pp. 4–5) from the Bulletin of Instruction: “It is hoped that the nursing staff will consider themselves as occupying positions of unusual opportunity for promoting the social as well as the physical welfare of the patients. They are expected to report bad housing conditions, violations of compulsory school or child labor laws, etcetera, and in all ways to regard themselves as serving the family and the community as a whole, as well as the individual patient.”
- “Best Helps to the Immigrant” article: Do you think that Lillian Wald is arguing that nurses should be involved in “Americanizing” immigrants? Why or why not? Be sure to provide a definition of “Americanization.” According to Wald, why are illnesses not always the fault of the individual? What does she mean when she says that nurses’ work can be of “wide patriotic significance”? Do you agree with Wald that health care providers should be involved in improving social conditions? Can you think of examples of this today?
- Compare the Henry Street photographs, the Fee and Bu article, the Bulletin of Instruction, and the Visiting Nurse Service website. How has the Henry Street Settlement (now Visiting Nurse Service of New York) changed between the 1890s and today? Are there any similarities? How have the populations served by New York’s visiting nurses changed over the past 120 years? What do these changes tell us about (a) the history of immigration and (b) the history of the U.S. health care system?
- Creative assignment: Write an imaginary diary entry of a typical day in the life of a Henry Street nurse.
