Charles Loring Brace
Encyclopedia
Charles Loring Brace was a contributing philanthropist
in the field of social reform. He is considered a father of the modern foster care
movement and was most renowned for starting the Orphan Train
movement of the mid-19th century, and for founding The Children's Aid Society
.
in 1846 and then went on to study divinity
and theology
at Yale, but left to study at Union Theological Seminary
, from which he graduated in 1849. He was drawn to New York because it was viewed as the center of American Protestantism and social activity. His best friend, Frederick Law Olmsted
, the landscape architect, also lived in New York. On August 21, 1854 he married Letitia Neill in Belfast
, Ireland
, who proved to be a great support to her husband’s social reform efforts. Letitia's father, Robert Neill, was an avid abolitionist and he opened his home to some of the world's most famous anti-slavery orators, including Frederick Douglass
.
In 1852, at the age of 26, Brace, who had been raised as a Calvinist, was serving as a minister to the poor of Blackwell's Island (now known as Roosevelt Island) and to the poor of the Five Points
Mission
, when he decided he wanted to fulfill his humanitarian efforts in the streets rather than in church. Brace was aware of the impoverished lives of the children in New York City and for this reason he concentrated on improving children’s situations and their future. A year later, in 1853, Brace established the Children's Aid Society
.
Brace witnessed many children in New York City who lived in poverty with parents who abused alcohol
, engaged in criminal activity, and were unfit parents. These children were sent to beg for money and sell newspapers and matches in the streets. They became known as “street Arabs” or “the dangerous classes” due to the street violence and gangs they inevitably became a part of. In some cases, children as young as five years old would be sent to jail
s where adults were imprisoned as well. The police referred to these children as “street rats”.
According to an essay written by Brace in 1872, one crime and poverty ridden area around Tenth Avenue was referred to as “Misery Row”. Misery Row was considered to be a main breeding ground of crime and poverty, and an inevitable "fever nest” where disease spread easily. Other children who were orphans or runaways found themselves drifting into this destitute area, as well as the old sheds of Eighteenth and Nineteenth Streets. Such was the severity of child poverty
in 1854 that the number of homeless children in New York City was estimated as high as 34,000.
Although orphanage
s existed, Brace did not believe they were worthwhile institutions because they merely served the purpose of feeding the poor and providing handouts. He felt that such institutions only deepened the dependence of the poor on charity
. Brace was also influenced by the writings of Edward Livingstone, a pioneer in prison reform
who believed that the best way to deal with crime and poverty was to prevent it. Brace focused on finding jobs and training for poor and destitute children so they could help themselves. His initial efforts in social reform included free kindergarten
s, free dental clinics, job placement, training programs, reading rooms, and lodging houses for boys.
, some southern and a few western states. From 1853 to 1864, 384 children were sent each year to families in New England states, the North Atlantic states and East North Central states. Nearly 1,000 children per year were sent from 1865 1874 to Michigan, Kansas, Iowa, and Missouri through Brace's "Emigration Plan”, now known as "The Orphan Trains". "In every American community, especially in a western one, there are many spare places at the table of life," Brace wrote. "They have enough for themselves and the stranger too."
The trains transported children from lodging houses, orphanages, private homes or the street, bringing them to towns where local organizers had created interest in the program. Notices were posted around town and in newspapers, informing locals when the children would arrive and of the viewing location. The Children's Aid Society (CAS) made arrangements with train companies for the children (in groups ranging in size from three to 35, along with at least two adult agents) to travel in regular passenger coaches, not in wooden box cars as is sometimes depicted in novels. At towns along the route, the children assembled at the train station or were brought to opera houses, schools, or town halls for the community to meet and interview.
" (an early, pre-genetic concept that blood carried a family's heritability and character) did not predetermine one's future. Brace was deeply moved by Charles Darwin
's Origin of Species, having read it thirteen times. Brace was also an outspoken abolitionist. In a bold move (and perhaps inspired by his abolitionist and Darwinian mindset), Brace did away with the centuries-old custom of indenture
so that the "placed" children were allowed to leave a home if they were uncomfortable with the placement. Brace’s vision of migrating children to live with the western Christian farming families was widely supported by wealthy New York families – the first $50 was given by Mrs. John Astor
in 1853.
The Children's Aid Society (CAS), the best-known organization finding homes for children, made efforts to screen the host families and follow up on the welfare of placed children. By 1909, at the first White House Conference on Dependent Children, the country's top social reformers praised the CAS' emigration movement, but argued that children should either be kept with their natal families or, if they were removed as a result of parental neglect
or abuse
, every effort should be made to place the child in a foster home nearby. In a report in 1910, the Children’s Aid Society estimated that 87 percent of children placed by the Orphan Train program had done well. While there was occasional abuse, most people agreed that over all, the children were generally better off than on the streets of big cities without proper food, clothing and shelter.
By 1920, the CAS and approximately 1500 other agencies and institutions had placed approximately 150,000 children in the largest migration or resettlement of children in American history. The CAS' Orphan Train movement ended in 1929, 75 years after it had begun as a social experiment.
To this day, Brace is honored and revered for his compassionate work with the street children of New York City. He helped 400,000 children with the orphan train
Brace served as an executive secretary of Children's Aid Society for 37 years, overseeing the program. He died in 1890 from Bright's disease
. After his death, the Brace Memorial Farm was created for street children to learn farm skills, manners, and personal social skills
to help prepare them for life on their own. His memoirs were published in 1872 under the title "The Dangerous Classes of New York and Twenty Years’ Work Among Them" (ISBN 1402181493).
Philanthropist
A philanthropist is someone who engages in philanthropy; that is, someone who donates his or her time, money, and/or reputation to charitable causes...
in the field of social reform. He is considered a father of the modern foster care
Foster care
Foster care is the term used for a system in which a minor who has been made a ward is placed in the private home of a state certified caregiver referred to as a "foster parent"....
movement and was most renowned for starting the Orphan Train
Orphan Train
The Orphan Train was a social experiment that transported children from crowded coastal cities of the United States to the country's Midwest for adoption. The orphan trains ran between 1854 and 1929, relocating an estimated 200,000 orphaned, abandoned, or homeless children...
movement of the mid-19th century, and for founding The Children's Aid Society
Children's Aid Society
__notoc__The Children’s Aid Society is a private charitable organization based in New York City. It serves 150,000 children per year, providing foster care, medical and mental health services, and a wide range of educational, recreational and advocacy services through dozens of community centers,...
.
Biography
Brace's mother died when he was 14, and he was raised by his father, a history teacher. He graduated from YaleYALE
RapidMiner, formerly YALE , is an environment for machine learning, data mining, text mining, predictive analytics, and business analytics. It is used for research, education, training, rapid prototyping, application development, and industrial applications...
in 1846 and then went on to study divinity
Divinity
Divinity and divine are broadly applied but loosely defined terms, used variously within different faiths and belief systems — and even by different individuals within a given faith — to refer to some transcendent or transcendental power or deity, or its attributes or manifestations in...
and theology
Theology
Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...
at Yale, but left to study at Union Theological Seminary
Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York
Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York is a preeminent independent graduate school of theology, located in Manhattan between Claremont Avenue and Broadway, 120th to 122nd Streets. The seminary was founded in 1836 under the Presbyterian Church, and is affiliated with nearby Columbia...
, from which he graduated in 1849. He was drawn to New York because it was viewed as the center of American Protestantism and social activity. His best friend, Frederick Law Olmsted
Frederick Law Olmsted
Frederick Law Olmsted was an American journalist, social critic, public administrator, and landscape designer. He is popularly considered to be the father of American landscape architecture, although many scholars have bestowed that title upon Andrew Jackson Downing...
, the landscape architect, also lived in New York. On August 21, 1854 he married Letitia Neill in Belfast
Belfast
Belfast is the capital of and largest city in Northern Ireland. By population, it is the 14th biggest city in the United Kingdom and second biggest on the island of Ireland . It is the seat of the devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly...
, Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
, who proved to be a great support to her husband’s social reform efforts. Letitia's father, Robert Neill, was an avid abolitionist and he opened his home to some of the world's most famous anti-slavery orators, including Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass was an American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman. After escaping from slavery, he became a leader of the abolitionist movement, gaining note for his dazzling oratory and incisive antislavery writing...
.
In 1852, at the age of 26, Brace, who had been raised as a Calvinist, was serving as a minister to the poor of Blackwell's Island (now known as Roosevelt Island) and to the poor of the Five Points
Five Points, Manhattan
Five Points was a neighborhood in central lower Manhattan in New York City. The neighborhood was generally defined as being bound by Centre Street in the west, The Bowery in the east, Canal Street in the north and Park Row in the south...
Mission
Mission (station)
A religious mission or mission station is a location for missionary work.While primarily a Christian term, the concept of the religious "mission" is also used prominently by the Church of Scientology and their Scientology Missions International....
, when he decided he wanted to fulfill his humanitarian efforts in the streets rather than in church. Brace was aware of the impoverished lives of the children in New York City and for this reason he concentrated on improving children’s situations and their future. A year later, in 1853, Brace established the Children's Aid Society
Children's Aid Society
__notoc__The Children’s Aid Society is a private charitable organization based in New York City. It serves 150,000 children per year, providing foster care, medical and mental health services, and a wide range of educational, recreational and advocacy services through dozens of community centers,...
.
Brace witnessed many children in New York City who lived in poverty with parents who abused alcohol
Alcohol
In chemistry, an alcohol is an organic compound in which the hydroxy functional group is bound to a carbon atom. In particular, this carbon center should be saturated, having single bonds to three other atoms....
, engaged in criminal activity, and were unfit parents. These children were sent to beg for money and sell newspapers and matches in the streets. They became known as “street Arabs” or “the dangerous classes” due to the street violence and gangs they inevitably became a part of. In some cases, children as young as five years old would be sent to jail
Prison
A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the state for the commission of a crime...
s where adults were imprisoned as well. The police referred to these children as “street rats”.
According to an essay written by Brace in 1872, one crime and poverty ridden area around Tenth Avenue was referred to as “Misery Row”. Misery Row was considered to be a main breeding ground of crime and poverty, and an inevitable "fever nest” where disease spread easily. Other children who were orphans or runaways found themselves drifting into this destitute area, as well as the old sheds of Eighteenth and Nineteenth Streets. Such was the severity of child poverty
Child poverty
Child poverty refers to the phenomenon of children living in poverty. This applies to children that come from poor families or orphans being raised with limited, or in some cases absent, state resources. Children that fail to meet the minimum acceptable standard of life for the nation where that...
in 1854 that the number of homeless children in New York City was estimated as high as 34,000.
Although orphanage
Orphanage
An orphanage is a residential institution devoted to the care of orphans – children whose parents are deceased or otherwise unable or unwilling to care for them...
s existed, Brace did not believe they were worthwhile institutions because they merely served the purpose of feeding the poor and providing handouts. He felt that such institutions only deepened the dependence of the poor on charity
Charitable organization
A charitable organization is a type of non-profit organization . It differs from other types of NPOs in that it centers on philanthropic goals A charitable organization is a type of non-profit organization (NPO). It differs from other types of NPOs in that it centers on philanthropic goals A...
. Brace was also influenced by the writings of Edward Livingstone, a pioneer in prison reform
Prison reform
Prison reform is the attempt to improve conditions inside prisons, aiming at a more effective penal system.-History:Prisons have only been used as the primary punishment for criminal acts in the last couple of centuries...
who believed that the best way to deal with crime and poverty was to prevent it. Brace focused on finding jobs and training for poor and destitute children so they could help themselves. His initial efforts in social reform included free kindergarten
Kindergarten
A kindergarten is a preschool educational institution for children. The term was created by Friedrich Fröbel for the play and activity institute that he created in 1837 in Bad Blankenburg as a social experience for children for their transition from home to school...
s, free dental clinics, job placement, training programs, reading rooms, and lodging houses for boys.
Fostering and the “Orphan Trains”
Brace endeavored to place children into farm families of northern New York State, the Midwest and, after the American Civil WarAmerican Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
, some southern and a few western states. From 1853 to 1864, 384 children were sent each year to families in New England states, the North Atlantic states and East North Central states. Nearly 1,000 children per year were sent from 1865 1874 to Michigan, Kansas, Iowa, and Missouri through Brace's "Emigration Plan”, now known as "The Orphan Trains". "In every American community, especially in a western one, there are many spare places at the table of life," Brace wrote. "They have enough for themselves and the stranger too."
The trains transported children from lodging houses, orphanages, private homes or the street, bringing them to towns where local organizers had created interest in the program. Notices were posted around town and in newspapers, informing locals when the children would arrive and of the viewing location. The Children's Aid Society (CAS) made arrangements with train companies for the children (in groups ranging in size from three to 35, along with at least two adult agents) to travel in regular passenger coaches, not in wooden box cars as is sometimes depicted in novels. At towns along the route, the children assembled at the train station or were brought to opera houses, schools, or town halls for the community to meet and interview.
Emigration Plan
Brace's Emigration Plan was also an anti-eugenic movement because Brace believed that one's "gemmulesGemmules
Gemmules were imagined particles of inheritance proposed byCharles Darwin as part of his Pangenesis theory. This appeared in his book The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication, published in 1868, nine years after the publication of his famous book On the Origin of Species.Gemmules,...
" (an early, pre-genetic concept that blood carried a family's heritability and character) did not predetermine one's future. Brace was deeply moved by Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
's Origin of Species, having read it thirteen times. Brace was also an outspoken abolitionist. In a bold move (and perhaps inspired by his abolitionist and Darwinian mindset), Brace did away with the centuries-old custom of indenture
Indenture
An indenture is a legal contract reflecting a debt or purchase obligation, specifically referring to two types of practices: in historical usage, an indentured servant status, and in modern usage, an instrument used for commercial debt or real estate transaction.-Historical usage:An indenture is a...
so that the "placed" children were allowed to leave a home if they were uncomfortable with the placement. Brace’s vision of migrating children to live with the western Christian farming families was widely supported by wealthy New York families – the first $50 was given by Mrs. John Astor
John Jacob Astor III
John Jacob Astor III was the elder son of William Backhouse Astor, Sr. and the wealthiest member of the Astor family in his generation...
in 1853.
The Children's Aid Society (CAS), the best-known organization finding homes for children, made efforts to screen the host families and follow up on the welfare of placed children. By 1909, at the first White House Conference on Dependent Children, the country's top social reformers praised the CAS' emigration movement, but argued that children should either be kept with their natal families or, if they were removed as a result of parental neglect
Neglect
Neglect is a passive form of abuse in which a perpetrator is responsible to provide care for a victim who is unable to care for himself or herself, but fails to provide adequate care....
or abuse
Abuse
Abuse is the improper usage or treatment for a bad purpose, often to unfairly or improperly gain benefit. Abuse can come in many forms, such as: physical or verbal maltreatment, injury, sexual assault, violation, rape, unjust practices; wrongful practice or custom; offense; crime, or otherwise...
, every effort should be made to place the child in a foster home nearby. In a report in 1910, the Children’s Aid Society estimated that 87 percent of children placed by the Orphan Train program had done well. While there was occasional abuse, most people agreed that over all, the children were generally better off than on the streets of big cities without proper food, clothing and shelter.
By 1920, the CAS and approximately 1500 other agencies and institutions had placed approximately 150,000 children in the largest migration or resettlement of children in American history. The CAS' Orphan Train movement ended in 1929, 75 years after it had begun as a social experiment.
To this day, Brace is honored and revered for his compassionate work with the street children of New York City. He helped 400,000 children with the orphan train
Brace served as an executive secretary of Children's Aid Society for 37 years, overseeing the program. He died in 1890 from Bright's disease
Bright's disease
Bright's disease is a historical classification of kidney diseases that would be described in modern medicine as acute or chronic nephritis. The term is no longer used, as diseases are now classified according to their more fully understood causes....
. After his death, the Brace Memorial Farm was created for street children to learn farm skills, manners, and personal social skills
Social skills
A social skill is any skill facilitating interaction and communication with others. Social rules and relations are created, communicated, and changed in verbal and nonverbal ways. The process of learning such skills is called socialization...
to help prepare them for life on their own. His memoirs were published in 1872 under the title "The Dangerous Classes of New York and Twenty Years’ Work Among Them" (ISBN 1402181493).
In popular culture
- The song by Utah PhillipsUtah PhillipsBruce Duncan "Utah" Phillips was a labor organizer, folk singer, storyteller, poet and the "Golden Voice of the Great Southwest". He described the struggles of labor unions and the power of direct action, self-identifying as an anarchist...
called "Orphan Train" has been performed by numerous modern bluegrassBluegrass musicBluegrass music is a form of American roots music, and a sub-genre of country music. It has mixed roots in Scottish, English, Welsh and Irish traditional music...
singers. - The book Gratefully Yours describes a nine-year-old girl's feelings about her new family who adopt her from the orphan train.
- There is a ballet entitled Orphan Train presented by Covenant Ballet Theatre of Brooklyn, which tells the story of Brace and shows stories of orphans on the train. It is choreographed by Marla Hirokawa.
- Authors Al and Joanna Lacy have written an Orphan Trains Trilogy, depicting the lives of fictional orphans.
- The ballad "Rider On An Orphan Train", written by David Massengill, describes the inevitable tragedy of the separation of siblings in spite of the efforts to keep brothers and sisters together.
- The book Train to Somewhere by Eve Bunting describes a fictional account of a girl's journey on the Orphan Train.
Descendants
- Gerald Warner BraceGerald Warner BraceGerald Warner Brace was an American novelist, writer, educator, sailor and boat builder. His work frequently employed settings from rural life in New England.-Early life and ancestors:...
(1901–1978) was an American writer, educator, sailor and boat builder. - Dr. C. Loring BraceC. Loring BraceC. Loring Brace is an anthropologist at the University of Michigan. He considers the attempt "to introduce a Darwinian outlook into biological anthropology" to be his greatest contribution to the field of anthropology.-Life and work:...
IV, Biological anthropologist.