Raised by the Church: Growing up in New York City's Catholic Orphanages

B. The Foundling Hospital

Appendix B The Foundling Hospital In the 1800s in New York City, the government had no provision for the care of abandoned babies and very small children. Each year, thousands were abandoned to alleyways and trash heaps around the city. Those found alive on the streets were taken by the police to a prison and workhouse known as Blackwell’s Island. There the infants and small children were cared for by aging prisoners. Not surprisingly , few survived infancy. Mothers also left infants at the doors of religious schools and convents. Sr. Mary Irene Fitzgibbon of the Sisters of Charity was a novice in the order when she began to observe an increase in the number of abandoned babies being left at the doors of her convent and the school where she taught. Having emigrated from London, she knew about foundling asylums in Europe, and she had the vision to understand that New York City was in desperate need of a similar system. With church approval, she organized a women’s society that raised enough money to rent a house on West 12th Street. They took residence in October 1869 and planned to open the doors to what they called the New York Foundling Asylum on January 1, 1870. But the need was so great that by the time the doors officially opened, they already had 123 babies in residence. The system was simple. A white cradle was placed in the foyer and the front door was unlocked. A desperate mother could enter and leave her child, with no questions asked. All she had to do was ring the bell to alert the sisters that another infant had been brought 214 | Appendix B to their door. The asylum was filling a desperate need, and by the end of its first year it had outgrown its quarters. They moved to a new, larger house at 3 Washington Square North, and shortly thereafter the New York State Assembly authorized New York City to cede the block between 68th and 69th Streets and Lexington and Third Avenues. The city was also authorized to match $100,000 to be raised by private donations for a building fund. The women’s society that Sr. Mary Irene had created raised $100,000, the city matched it, and the new building opened in 1873. It not only provided care for infants and unwed mothers, but also offered adoption services for children who were legally free to be adopted. The city provided support for the daily care of children at the residence, paying forty-five cents a day for each child under two years of age, and thirty-two cents for children over two years old. Catholic charities and donors also contributed. While the building was in progress, the asylum became a refuge for unmarried mothers. In 1880 St. Anne’s Maternity Pavilion was erected, in order to shelter expectant mothers who were in need and to provide proper care for them during their confinement. It remained in operation until 1945. By legal enactment in 1891, “The Foundling Asylum,” the organization ’s name under which it was incorporated in 1869, was changed to “The New York Foundling Hospital.” Today, the New York Foundling Hospital provides a variety of services that expand their mission, including nursery care on an emergency basis to abandoned and neglected children; casework services to families requesting placement of children; the placement and supervision of Catholic children in boarding and adoption homes; aftercare supervision of children discharged from foster care; and shelter care and casework services to unmarried mothers. For more on the Foundling Hospital, see Thomas Meehan, “Sister Irene,” The Catholic Encyclopedia (New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910), vol. 8, available at http://www.newadvent.org/ cathen/08131a.htm and http://www.orphantraindepot.com/NYFH History.html. ...