An Orphan In New York City

An Orphan in New York City is about survival. During the Great Depression families who suffered loss of income, loss of health, and loss of life sought frantically for ways to survive. Social Security, Housing and Urban Development, Public Assistance, and Public Health programs available today were limited or non-existent back then. All extended family members helped out as much as they could. When this was not enough, the only choice was to break up the family. Benevolent Jews had established orphanages to care for children left homeless or in poverty. The largest of these orphanages was the Hebrew Orphan Asylum, better known as the HOA or The Home, located between 136th to 138th Streets on Amsterdam Avenue across from the Lewisohn Stadium of the City College of New York City. From 1929 to 1939 the HOA housed more than one thousand boys and girls at a time. The Hebrew Orphan Asylum was referred to as a city within a city as it was basically self-contained. Not only where there the essentials of residential life-- dormitories, a kitchen, a dining room, an infirmary, a dental clinic, and a laundry--but also a public school 192, a synagogue, and a religious school. Then too there were a bakery, a shoe shop, a tailor shop, a barber shop, a clothing store, a candy store, a woodworking room, a sewing room, a photography studio and darkroom, a boys scout room, a band room, a choir room, athletic fields and playgrounds. There was a Reception House, the Main Building, the Warner Brothers Gymnasium (state of the art at that time), and buildings for boilers for heating. It had its own transportation system and a fire engine. There were military bands and drill squads, fraternities and sororities, as well as baseball, basketball, and football teams that competed with other orphanages and the junior varsity at City College. Orphans, half orphans, and children from broken families began their shared institutional lives at the Reception House where they were isolated for two weeks to assure they did not bring any contagious disease or illness into the institution. The author was one of those with a family destroyed by alcoholism and poverty who had to leave his family at the age of nine and begin an orphan's life. He writes: "Having seen, from my top-floor perch in the Reception House, children who were playing on the huge field below, and having listened to the marching band and watched the military drills, I was looking forward to moving to the Main Building. But when I finally got there I felt lost in the labyrinth of hallways and doorways, and among the masses of children who were coming and going. Outside, in the courtyard, were more than 100 children talking, shouting and playing together. One of my first memories there is of hearing a short rotund man suddenly shout above that babble of voices: "All Steeeeeeeeeel!" All Still. What that meant only became clear when, as I watched, most of the children froze in their places and stopped talking. One child did not freeze. The man with the powerful voice strode over to him and slapped him so hard across the face that the child fell down.In the years that I would be in the orphanage, that and similar examples made me obey the "All Still!" and always appear to be following commands, rules, and regulations, even when I wasn't obeying. What I witnessed there, day after day, also reinforced my hopeless and helpless feeling that there were immense forces beyond my control: my father's rage, my separation, my placement in an institutional environment, and the subsequent abuse in that environment. I wept within myself, and there was no adult at the institution to comfort me, not the first day nor the last." For his own healing, Dr. Siegel has written a book about his decade during the depression years in the Hebrew Orphan Asylum

The Hebrew Orphan Asylum Band of New York City, 1874–1941 is at the same time the story of a boys’ band and a story of New York City. The band was not only an important educational component of one of the largest Jewish charitable organizations of its time, but also a significant source of music-making and performance in New York. What made the band especially noteworthy was the reputation it developed performing outside of New York’s many concert halls and major musical institutions. The band was ever-present, participating in events ranging from conventional parades to building ground-breakings to celebrations of major figures in New York history. The band was always ready to perform and to be part of New York cultural life. In doing so, they typified the Jewish-American experience of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and illustrated the substantial effort of those that engage in community music-making and the critical role school music played in the lives of its participants and local community. These are the unknown musicians without whom New York’s musical life would have certainly been diminished. As this history explores their numerous performances, successes, and activities, historical events in New York, some lesser known than others, some humorous, some dark, are described in rich detail as well. The legacy of the band – the careers the boys had as they matured and the contributions they and their band directors made during their lives – is also explored in this fascinating history.

This history of the nation’s first orphanage for African American children, founded in New York City nearly two centuries ago. This book uncovers the history of the Colored Orphan Asylum, founded in 1836. Through three wars, two major financial panics, a devastating fire during the 1863 Draft Riots, several epidemics, waves of racial prejudice, and severely strained budgets, it cared for orphaned, neglected, and delinquent children, eventually receiving financial support from such renowned New York families as the Jays, Murrays, Roosevelts, Macys, and Astors. While the white female managers and their male advisers were dedicated to uplifting these children, the evangelical, mainly Quaker founding managers also exhibited the extreme paternalistic views endemic at the time, accepting advice or support from the African American community only grudgingly. It was frank criticism in 1913 from W.E.B. Du Bois that highlighted the conflict between the orphanage and the community it served, and it wasn’t until 1939 that it hired the first black trustee. More than 15,000 children were raised in the orphanage, and throughout its history letters and visits have revealed that hundreds if not thousands of “old boys and girls” looked back with admiration and respect at the home that nurtured them throughout their formative years. Weaving together African American history with a unique history of New York City, this is not only a painstaking study of a previously unsung institution but a unique window onto complex racial dynamics during a period when many failed to recognize equality among all citizens as a worthy purpose. In its current incarnation as Harlem-Dowling West Side Center for Children and Family Services, it continues to aid children (albeit not as an orphanage)—and maintains the principles of the women who organized it so long ago. “Scholars and general readers interested in New York history, race relations, social services, [or] philanthropy . . . will benefit from this work.”?Social Sciences Reviews

This is the second book by Mrs. Inskeep that breaks new ground with respect to the estimated 200,000 poor and abandoned orphaned children who were shipped from New York City orphanages to western families for adoption between 1853 and 1929. These children were placed primarily by the New York Foundling Hospital (NYFH) and the Children's Aid Society (CAS) and are now referred to as "Orphan Train Riders." Information as to the identities of a large number of these children has been preserved in federal and state censuses taken between 1855 and 1925, as well as in the 1890 New York City Police Census, and represents a potential boon to the descendants of these foundlings. This book, the sequel to Mars. Inskeep's 1995 work on the orphans from the New York Foundling Hospital, treats the residents of the Children's Aid Society.

Orphaned on the ship to New York, Daniel Flynn survives singing songs from home. Pick-pocket Thomas Reilly becomes his ally, and, together with Thomas's sister Molly, they are swept up by the Orphan Train Movement to find better lives across America. Will the dream prove elusive? How strong are bonds of loyalty when everything is at stake?

By the mid-1800s, the streets of New York City were home to an estimated 30,000 homeless, truant or orphaned children. These poor unfortunates were destined to commit petty crimes, be truant from school or home, or enter into prostitution, creating a tremendous drain on city resources and society in general. Magistrates committed the youthful offenders to asylums by the hundreds, one of which was the New York Juvenile Asylum, established in 1851. Overcrowding became a problem almost immediately. For the New York Juvenile Asylum, relief came with the implementation of a western indenturing plan in which companies of children were sent west, at first in partnership with the New York Children's Aid Society, later with Reverend Mr. Enoch Kingsbury of Danville, Illinois, and finally, independently by the Asylum itself. At the time, the American West was in critical need of laborers in both agriculture and industry, and many families were eager to take in a child who was willing to work in exchange for food and lodging, or to learn a trade. Indenture papers were signed stipulating boys would stay until age twenty-one and girls until age eighteen. At the completion of their indenture each child received a cash payment, new clothing, and a bible. The Asylum chose the state of Illinois to indenture the vast majority of its children in, later establishing a permanent western agent and agency house in the state. In 1861, the Illinois State Legislature passed a bill recognizing the indentures of the Asylum as legally binding documents. The orphan trains of the New York Juvenile Asylum were sent west from 1854 until circa 1921. By the time the practice ended the Asylum had indentured over 6,600 children in Illinois and a few surrounding states - chiefly Iowa. Volume one of this set chronicles the history of the New York Juvenile Asylum (later named The Children's Village) from its earliest history until circa 1923. Volumes Two through Volume Six are comprised of lists of all known names of children sent west from the Asylum, including dates, where sent, and with whom they were indentured.