Nettie Podell Ottenberg

Nettie Podell Ottenberg (1887–1982) was an 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 Odessa, New York and Philadelphia Nettie Podell was born in Odessa in the Russian Empire (present-day Ukraine) on April 5, 1887, to Mordecai "Max" Podell (died 1922), a bookkeeper, and Mannie Podell. She had three brothers: Morris, David, and Jack.

Washington, D.C. years On April 10, 1912, Nettie Podell married Louis Ottenberg, a lawyer in Washington, D.C., whose father founded Ottenberg Bakery, and joined him in Washington.

Other reform issues Ottenberg worked on included women's prisons, child labor and juvenile court systems, helping write D.C.'s juvenile court law. In 1963 she was appointed to the Public Welfare Advisory Committee and the next year won the first ever federal funding for day care. From 1964 through the 1970s, she was a board member of the National Child Day Care Association in Washington, D.C. Nettie Ottenberg died of pneumonia on May 11, 1982, in Washington, D.C. She was survived by her three children, three grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren, though daughter Miriam died in November of the same year.