Home for Destitute Catholic Children, Boston was a temporary home in Boston, Massachusetts for destitute and neglected children, aged 4 to 12, of any race, creed, or nationality. The Home was incorporated in 1891, succeeding the Association for the Protection of Destitute Roman Catholic Children in Boston, incorporated in 1864. [1]
No children were received for pay. Members of the Sisters of Charity instructed and care for the children until they returned to their friends, placed in situations, or provided with a Catholic home, the Home continuing its oversight. The Home could be appointed guardian of any child. Persons wishing to adopt a child from the Home were required to bring recommendations from their parish priest. [1]
The Home and the work of the association grew out of the Eliot Charity School, founded by a Protestant, Samuel Eliot, on November 25, 1850, [2] and for some time conducted at No. 9 High Street. The general management was held by a Board of Managers representing the different parishes of Boston and vicinity. [3] Soon after the Sisters of Charity assumed the direction of its affairs, which was in 1866, the institution was removed to No. 10 Common Street. [4]
In June 1867, a lot of 50,606 square feet (4,701.5 m2) on Harrison Avenue, opposite the Church of the Immaculate Conception was purchased, and in October, 1870, the cornerstone of the structure at Harrison Avenue, East Concord and Stoughton streets was laid. [3] It opened in the following year at a cost of more than US$100,000. [5] The Home was supported altogether by voluntary subscriptions, and an annual Charity Ball was given for its benefit. [4]
In 1890, it had 225. Income in that year from charitable contributions was US$10,428; from legacies, US$4,086; from entertainments, US$668; miscellaneous, US$773; total income, US$15,957. Expenditures were US$15,597. Real estate occupied, US$140,000; mortgaged for US$150,000. [1]
The report for year ending January 10, 1905 indicated that 1,152 children had been aided in that year, and that the number of beds was 255. There were ten paid officers or employees. The value of property owned and occupied for corporate purposes was US$140,000; and the value of investments was US$13,400. [6]
The report for year ending January 13, 1910 indicated that 1,698 children had been aided in that year, and that the number of beds was 290. There were ten paid officers or employees. Total expenses were US$25,413; value of property owned and occupied for corporate purposes was US$140,000; and the value of investments was US$61,599. [7] By this year, more than 26,000 children had been cared for in the Home. [8]
The Homebuilding was well arranged for its purpose. It was 175 by 50 feet (53 m × 15 m), and three stories high, with a French roof. It had schoolrooms, playrooms, dormitories, infirmaries, bathrooms, and dining rooms, affording ample accommodation for more than 200 children at one time. [4]
A statue of Our Lady of Purity, made of Italian marble, was mounted on a cement pedestal and occupied a prominent place in the gardens where it cold be seen from the home building. [9]
The Sisters of Charity of Nazareth (SCN) is a Roman Catholic order of nuns. It was founded in 1812 near Bardstown, Kentucky, when three young women responded to Bishop John Baptist Mary David's call for assistance in ministering to the needs of the people of the area.
The Sisters of Providence are a religious institute of Roman Catholic sisters founded in 1843 by Mother Émilie Gamelin. They are headquartered in Montreal, Quebec with five provinces: Mother Joseph Province, Holy Angels Province, Philippines Vice-Province, Émilie-Gamelin Province and Bernard Morin Province.
A protectory was a Roman Catholic institution for the shelter and training of the young, designed to afford neglected or abandoned children shelter, food, raiment and the rudiments of an education in religion, morals, science and manual training or industrial pursuits.
Levi Silliman Ives was an American theologian and Episcopal bishop of North Carolina. In 1852, he converted to Roman Catholicism. Ives subsequently became a noted professor at colleges in the New York area. He was the founder and first president of the New York Catholic Protectory, an institution for the shelter and education of destitute and abandoned children. He was also a founder of Manhattan College.
The Boston Female Asylum (1800–1910) was an orphanage in Boston, Massachusetts, "for the care of indigent girls." Its mission was to "receive ... protect ... and instruct ... female orphans until the age of 10 years, when they are placed in respectable families."
Harriet Abbott Lincoln Coolidge was an American philanthropist, author and reformer. She did much in the way of instructing young mothers in the care and clothing of infants, and furthered the cause to improve the condition of infants in foundling hospitals. She contributed a variety of articles on kindergarten matters to the daily press, and while living in Washington, D.C., she gave a series of "nursery talks" for mothers at her home, where she fitted up a model nursery. Coolidge was the editor of Trained Motherhood; and author of In the Story Land, Kindergarten Stories, Talks to Mothers, The Model Nursery, and What a Young Girl Ought to Know. She was one of the original signers of the Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution, and was an active member of four of the leading charity organizations in Washington. She died in 1902.
Martha Perry Lowe was an American writer of poetry and prose, as well as a social activist and organizer. She supported women's rights, temperance, education, and Unitarian organizations. Born in New Hampshire in 1829, her parents were General Justus Perry and Hannah Wood. She was a descendant of William Wood, the supposed author of New England's Prospects, who left England and settled in Concord in 1638. At the age of 15, Lowe was sent to Sedgwick's School for Young Ladies. After her graduation, she spent a winter in the West Indies, and the following year was passed in Madrid with her brother, who was a member of the Spanish legation. In 1857, she married the Rev. Charles Lowe who died in 1874, and at the time of his death was a member of the Somerville school committee. In 1871, when the family went to Europe, Lowe corresponded regularly for the Liberal Christian. In Somerville, she was connected with the Unitarian Review. She was the author of several books of prose and poetry; the most noted ones include The Olive and the Pine, Love in Spain, and a Memoir of Charles Lowe. She was interested in many public and private philanthropies, but her chief interests were in the public schools. She was among the first to advocate the teaching of cooking and sewing, and at her suggestion a sum of money was raised for that purpose. She was one of the founders of the Educational Union in Somerville, one of whose duties was a regular visitation of the schools by its members. She was a member of the Society of American Authors of New York, the Authors' Club of Boston, the Woman's Education Association, and the Unitarian Church Temperance Society, as well as an honorary member of the Castilian Club, of the Heptorean Club, of the Teachers' Annuity Guild, honorary president of the Woman Suffrage League, a director of the Massachusetts Suffrage Association, president of the Woman's Alliance of the First Unitarian Church, and a member of the Cambridge Branch of the Indian Association. She died in Massachusetts in 1902.
Grace A. Oliver was a 19th-century American author, litterateur, and advocate for women's rights. She was characterized as a woman of rare executive ability, a good speaker, and was noted for her charity work.
Anna Campbell Palmer was an American author and editor. Disliking publicity, she wrote constantly under a great number of nom de plumes, adopting a new one when she began to be identified. Sometimes she had intervals of complete silence, distrustful of her powers and displeased with her efforts. After her marriage, she was known as "Mrs. George Archibald". In 1901, she began to use her full married name, Mrs. George Archibald Palmer, on all her books and articles in periodicals. She wrote a number of poems which appeared in the principal magazines of her day. She was also a successful author of fiction and biography. Palmer served as editor of Young Men's Journal, a YMCA magazine, from 1889 until 1898, at the time being the only woman editor of a young men's journal in the world.
Lilian Carpenter Streeter was an American social reformer, organizational founder, clubwoman, and author. She founded the Concord Woman's Club, and the New Hampshire Federation of Woman's Clubs. Having lived in Concord, New Hampshire from 1877 till her death, she was active in every social, educational, and philanthropic movement that was brought to her notice, and her actions commanded the support and cooperation of other women. At the National Conference of Charities and Corrections, held in Baltimore, Maryland, 1915, Streeter gave a paper entitled, "The Relation of Mental Defect to the Neglected, Dependent, and Delinquent Children of New Hampshire", making her the first woman to give a paper of this kind at a national conference. Streeter's articles on social and charitable topics appeared in magazines of the day.
Sophia Curtiss Hoffman was an American philanthropist, known as the Helen Gould of the early 1870s. She was the founder of the benevolent institution known as the Chapin Home for the Aged, in New York City. She was also numbered among the reformers, as one of the first treasurers of the Association for the Advancement of Women, and a vice-president of the Woman's Centenary Association of the Universalist Church.
Helen Rand Thayer was an American suffragist and social reformer. A pioneer in the settlement movement era, she was a co-founder and president of the College Settlements Association (CSA). She was also an alumnæ trustee of Smith College.
Clara Bancroft Beatley was an American educator, lecturer, and author, as well as a clubwoman and suffragist. A a descendant of staunch Unitarians, for many years, she served as the principal of the Church of the Disciples school in Boston, Massachusetts.
Gertrude Vaile was an American social worker. Gertrude became the executive secretary to the committee of the National Conference on Charities and Correction in 1916, and was elected to head the National Welfare Workers in 1925 at the National Conference of Social Work.
Sibylla Bailey Crane was an American educator, musical composer, and author. Her benevolent work included that of the church, the educational institutions of Massachusetts, the general theological library, and the prisons and reformatory schools of the state. She was prominent in musical and social circles and in various patriotic and other organizations, and contributed liberally for the advancement of many worthy objects. Crane was the author of a volume entitled, Glimpses of the Old World.
Castilian Club was an American women's study club. It was founded in Boston, Massachusetts, February 8, 1888, by Abba Goold Woolson after a visit to Spain. Sibylla Bailey Crane was a co-founder. According to the Certificates of Corporations Organized Under the General Laws of Massachusetts, the legal date of organization was April 6, 1898 while April 27, 1898 was the date of charter.
Julia Knowlton Dyer was an American philanthropist of the long nineteenth century. She was associated for over 40 years with nearly every large philanthropic work started in Boston. Her rare executive ability combined with an even temperament made her a natural leader of large bodies. Dyer was prominently connected with 24 associations, only one of which, the Castilian Club, was purely literary. She was president of the Soldiers' Home in Chelsea, Massachusetts, president and founder of the Woman's Charity Club, a member of the executive boards of the Home for Intemperate Women, the Helping Hand Association, and president of the local branch of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (W.C.T.U.). For 26 years, she was a manager for the Home for Female Prisoners in Dedham, Massachusetts, and was a life member of The Bostonian Society. The Woman's Charity Club Hospital was started by Dyer, president of the Woman's Charity Club; originally located at 28 Chester Park, a few years later, a more commodious hospital was built on Boston's Parker Hill.
Eliza M. Chandler White was an American social reformer and charity work leader, as well as an abolitionist, and clubwoman. She founded the Brooklyn Home for Consumptives, and the Fort Greene Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution (D.A.R.). She was also the head of the Prison Ship Martyrs Committee which erected the Prison Ship Martyrs' Monument in Fort Greene Park, Brooklyn. She was one of the best-known women of Brooklyn in her day.
The Association of Tuberculosis Clinics was an early 20th-century organization of tuberculosis clinics based in New York City, New York. It was formed in 1907 with eight clinics in Manhattan and The Bronx, and was considered to be a forward movement of great importance in the tuberculosis campaign in New York City. Aside from the general object of combating tuberculosis and alleviating the condition of tuberculosis persons, the association aimed to prevent patients drifting from one clinic to another.
Miriam O'Leary Collins was an American stage actor associated with Boston Museum theatre. After marriage, she staged plays, several times for the benefit of the Home for Destitute Catholic Children. She also worked as a elocution and dramatic action coach.