The settlement movement — in which educated reformers moved into impoverished urban neighborhoods to provide direct services and advocate for social change — had its greatest champion in Lillian Wald, a nurse who founded Henry Street Settlement in 1893 after…
As Nazi persecution of European Jews intensified through the late 1930s and early 1940s, the Assistance Fund deepened its commitment to Jewish organizations — both those serving New York’s Jewish community, and those providing urgent relief to Jews fleeing Europe.…
New York City in the 1930s was home to thousands of children living in poverty, on the streets, or without stable families — the casualties of the Depression, immigration, and a social safety net that barely existed. The Assistance Fund’s…