Nettie Ottenberg
Nettie Podell Ottenberg was a Russian Empire-born American social worker. She was one of the first trained social workers in the United States. An advocate for women's suffrage, voting rights for Washington, D.C., and childcare, in the 1960s she won the first federal funding for daycare and the nickname “The Mother of Daycare”. Early life in Odesa, New York and Philadelphia Nettie Podell was born in Odesa (then part of Russian Empire) on April 5, 1887, to Mordecai "Max" Podell (died 1922), a bookkeeper, and Mannie Podell. She had three brothers: Morris, David, and Jack. Her father was a linguist who often helped neighbors by translating letters from relatives who had immigrated to the United States and soon he was persuaded to go too. He moved first and the rest of the family immigrated to the United States in 1893. From age five Nettie grew up on the Lower East Side of New York City and by her teenager years was horrified by the treatment of impoverished immigrants in the Lower East Side tenements, as the destitute were deported; this drew her to social work. She did not attend high school, enrolling directly in professional school, the New York School