Figure 1.--This Civil War era CDV portrait of an ynidentofied little street urchin child in ragged clothing has a statement written in old ink saying 'just as i found him waiting for Santa Clause". The studio is A.D James from Corning New York. We are not sure if Mr. James took the portrait or someone else brought the boy to the studio for a portraiut because he wanted an interesting photoge=aph to add to his album.

Orphanages were one approach to caring for abandoned children. There is a tendcy to associate abandoned children with industrializatuin. Here we can thank Charkes Dickens and the impact of Marx and Socialism on social thought. Researchers have found, howwever, that child abandonment and unwanted children was "... was both a rueral and urban one that transcended gepographical and national boundaries . Across countries and centuries, some women have always wanted, or found it necessary, to part with their babies. " [Fuchs, p. 55.] The growth of European populations, in large measure due to the introifuction of the potato (16th century) and groth of cities increased the number of children and concentrated them in cities where the problem was more visible. And obviously visibility is not a valid measure of actual prevalence. The exisence of orpganages shows that there were abandoned childrn in America. We have, however, not been able to find much informatgion on abandoned children in America before the 20th century. Much of the information we have found concern Europe. We are not sure why we have found less information about abandoned American children. Perhaps this was less of a problem in America, but if so we are not sure why. It my be that the problem was less visible as Americaa was still alarfgely rural socety in the first half of the 19th century. The problem masy have been dealt with by families and local communities and or churches. Hopefully we will be able to find an academic assessment of the problem in America.

Sources

Fuchs, Rachel G. "Legislation, poverty, and child-abandonment in nineteeth-century Paris," Journal of Interdisciplinary Histoty Vol. 18, No. 1 (Summer 1987), pp. 55-80.

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Created: 4:29 AM 7/19/2014
Last update: 4:29 AM 7/19/2014