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

1. The Search for Solutions

1 The Search for Solutions It’s a fantasy to imagine that our complex world has somehow lost its ability to provide compassionate care for the most vulnerable children in our society. It’s a fantasy to believe that if we could only go back to the “good old days” the thorny issues would dis appear. This book tells the story of how people of goodwill worked to find consensus among the conflicting philosophical, political, and moral beliefs about society’s role in caring for the poor. It is a story of the constant debates about our obligations to the smallest and most vulnerable among us, because the truth is that there was never a golden time when conscientious people did not struggle with these issues. Long before the American Revolution, colonists wrestled with the same questions that confound us today: How can society provide impoverished, orphaned and abandoned children with the tools to become contributing members of society? Where should they live? Who will care for them? How much will such care cost? And, of course, who will pay the bills? In the 1960s, the federal government mandated that orphanages be closed. Foster care became “the answer,” which is interesting because before foster care, orphanages were “the answer,” filling the role of caregivers to young children. Before that, the solution was to indenture minors and ship thousands of urban children to rural settings in the Midwest on “orphan trains.” And before orphanages 10 | orphans in america and orphan trains, institutions known variously in this country as “the poorhouse,” “the poor farm,” or “the workhouse” provided children and their indigent parents with custodial care. The Poorhouse As early as 1653, the Dutch community of New Amsterdam—later New York City—appointed two men as “Overseers of Orphans.” Their responsibilities were to “keep their eyes open and look . . . after widows and orphans.” The Dutch also created an Orphan’s Court to “attend to orphans and minor children within the jurisdiction of this city.” These early institutions were the first acknowledgement by early settlers that, in the absence of parental supervision, the community had a moral responsibility to care for its young. A few years later, Boston made an official commitment when, in 1660, it created the first legislated social safety net in colonial America—the poorhouse. City leaders were influenced by the English Poor Laws, which made the surrounding community responsible for keeping orphans and widows from dying of starvation. Boston’s poorhouse was a pungent mix of humanity that included the aged, alcoholic, disabled, mentally ill, unemployed, widowed, and children. Before there was Social Security, unemployment insurance, Medicare , Medicaid, or food stamps, the poorhouse provided millions of Americans with its scant aid and comfort. Still, limited as it was, the poorhouse met an urgent need. As settlers expanded west across North America, they were sure to build poorhouses in addition to churches and schools. In time, some of these humble institutions evolved into full-fledged community resources . In some counties and towns, while remaining available for its original use, the local poorhouse grew to play a major role as an agricultural center and was reinvented as a source of revenue for the government. The Search for Solutions | 11 But a safety net can stretch only so far before it begins to tear. As the population grew, so, too, did the poorhouse population, and by the 1820s conditions there ranged from barely tolerable to horrific. Usually , the institution’s administrator held his position only because of political patronage. It was an early example of a“no-show”job. The average administrator did as little as he could, which was in line with the thinking of the poorhouse governing body, whose aim was to spend as little money as was absolutely necessary. This neglect translated into the horror stories that have come down to us from that time: people with mental and emotional disabilities chained to the wall and treated like animals; criminals and alcoholics lurching in the halls, terrifying children and preying on old men and women; and the like. The Deserving Versus the Undeserving Poor By the 1840s, people could not pretend that the poorhouse was an acceptable answer; conditions there became so awful and the taint of criminal negligence so obvious that society could no longer get away with its benign neglect. Muckrakers like Dorothea Dix campaigned on behalf of the mentally ill...