Boston Society for the Care of Girls

The Boston Female Asylum (BFA) was established in 1800, incorporated in 1803, and changed its name in 1910 to The Boston Society for the Care of Girls. The Boston Female Asylum, organized by Mrs. Hannah Stillman, was the "first public charity projected and established by women in the town of Boston."The objective of the Society was to "raise funds for the benefit of female orphan children from three to ten years of age." During the Society's first two years, the girls were boarded out to good homes for one dollar and fifty cents per week. But in 1803 the Managers purchased the first of a succession of houses, having deemed it necessary to accommodate the girls under one roof. At the age of twelve, a girl was then placed in a home under indenture. She would stay with that family until the age of eighteen, when at that time, the family would pay her fifty dollars. Often the girls married right away, so they were provided for before they reached the age of nineteen. Others were provided for by adoption. No child was placed outside the Asylum before the age of twelve unless she was adopted by a good family. In 1922, the Board of Managers and the Directors from the Boston Children's Aid Society voted to form a federation, known as the Children's Aid Association. From 1922 until 1947 the "two organizations retained their corporate identities although functioning as one child placing agency. Then in 1947 [the two organizations] were legally merged under the name of Children's Aid Association, Inc."