{"value"=>"<p>Letters by Wald are arranged chronologically. The letters are infrequent until the beginning of World War I. After 1918, a more systematic retention of her letters resulted in something approaching a complete record of daily correspondence. The beginnings of the Visiting Nurse Service appear in an item of July 2, 1893, the first of numerous reports by Wald and Mary Brewster, her companion, on the venture to New York's Lower East Side. The letters reflect Wald's lifelong concern for the social conditions first encountered in her nursing rounds. She sought to improve wretched housing, sanitation, and working conditions, and create new recreational and cultural facilities. She described her experiences and pleaded for help from personal and professional friends and through official government channels. Within this subseries are letters to many well known people in the United States and abroad.</p> <p>There is an extensive correspondence with Ramsay MacDonald and his family, also with Margaret Bondfield. Presidents Wilson, and the two Roosevelt presidents received Wald's frequent pleas to support or veto various measures. Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, Governor Alfred E. Smith, Irene and Alice Lewisohn, Frances Perkins, George Alger, Henry and Rita Wallach Morgenthau, Josephine Goldmark, Helen Keller, Paul Kellogg, Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Lehman, Dr. Louis I. Dublin, Mr. and Mrs. Felix Warburg, Dr. Haven Emerson, Dr. Alice Solomon, and Sidney Hillman are but a few of the friends with whom Wald corresponded. There are also letters to Fannie Hurst, Zona Gale, Leo Arnstein, Eleanor Roosevelt, Arthur Hays Sulzberger, Ruth Draper, Mary Dreier and Helen Rogers Reid. Her correspondents in the field of social work include Jane Addams, Florence Kelley, Julia Lathrop, Grace Abbott, Homer Folks, Alice Hamilton and Katherine Lenroot. Among leaders in nursing represented are Lavinia Dock, Adelaide Nutting, Annie Goodrich, Isabel Stewart, Alma Haupt, Naomi Deutsch, Marguerite Wales, Lillian A. Hudson, Yssabella Waters and Katherine Tucker.</p>"}