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Lillian D. Wald

National Portrait Gallery

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Object Details

Artist
William Valentine Schevill, 1864 - 1951
Sitter
Lillian D. Wald, 10 Mar 1867 - 1 Sep 1940
Exhibition Label
Lillian Wald grew up in an affluent German-Jewish community, attending private schools and destined for a life of ease. A chance meeting with a nurse opened "a window on a new world" and a lifelong career. While teaching home-nursing to immigrants in lower Manhattan, she underwent another life-changing experience after visiting a student's home and seeing the poverty and filth of the tenements firsthand. In 1895 Wald established the "Nurse's Settlement House" and then a visiting nurse service, both becoming nationally known. During the first decades of the twentieth century, Wald became a spokesperson for reform, including women's issues and race relations. She joined pacifists to keep America out of World War I, thus incurring the wrath of patriot groups, but continued her work, serving with the Red Cross and as chairman of an emergency council for curbing the 1918 influenza epidemic. According to friends, this portrait captured Wald with remarkable accuracy.
Credit Line
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of the Visiting Nurse Service of New York
1919
Object number
NPG.76.37
Restrictions & Rights
CC0
Type
Painting
Medium
Oil on cardboard
Dimensions
Board: 72.7 x 72.4 x 0.3cm (28 5/8 x 28 1/2 x 1/8")
Frame: 81.3 x 82.6 x 3.8cm (32 x 32 1/2 x 1 1/2")
See more items in
National Portrait Gallery Collection
Exhibition
20th Century Americans: 1900-1930 (re-installation 2012)
On View
NPG, South Gallery 322
National Portrait Gallery
Topic
Lillian D. Wald: Female
Lillian D. Wald: Literature\Writer
Lillian D. Wald: Society and Social Change\Reformer\Social Reformer
Lillian D. Wald: Society and Social Change\Reformer\Suffragist
Lillian D. Wald: Health and Medicine\Nurse
Lillian D. Wald: Society and Social Change\Pacifist
Portrait
Record ID
npg_NPG.76.37
Metadata Usage (text)
CC0
GUID (Link to Original Record)
http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/sm4343cb1ff-99e7-430f-97da-5f4466936fcd

Related Content

  • Leading Figures of World War I

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