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Nurses working for the Henry Street Visiting Nurse Service in New York City took these snapshots, which show their lives and the lives of the families they cared for in the 1930s.

A mother, holding a toddler, and a young boy stand at the top step of wooden frame house.

“Two youngest children in a family of 9. They all lived in the house while it was being moved. For weeks, it was in the middle of the street. The plaster was all removed from the walls.”

Women who worked for the Henry Street Visiting Nurses Service provided care to many families devastated by the Great Depression.

Courtesy U.S. National Library of Medicine