Yaffa, Claire

Claire Yaffa is a freelance photojournalist known for her social realism. Her work encompasses abused or neglected children and the ill, elderly, and homeless. In addition to the New York Foundling Hospital (now known as the "Foundling"), she has photographed for The National Foundation for Children with Learning Disabilities, the Incarnation Children's Hospital, Bronx-Lebanon Hospital, New York School for the Deaf and Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital. This work has been published in two photojournalism monographs: Reaching Out (1987) and A Dying Child is Born: The Story of Tracy (1992). Yaffa is a critically acclaimed fine art photographer as well. Her fine-art monographs include: Light and Shadow (1998), Moments (2004), Life’s Dream (2006), and Divertissement (2008). Her work has been exhibited at the International Center of Photography, the Hudson River Museum, the Neuberger Museum, Fait et Cause in Paris, and the United Nations, as well as published in major newspapers and magazines.

Claire Yaffa’s involvement with the Foundling began with a call in 1979 to Dr. Vincent J. Fontana, the medical director of the Foundling’s Center for Parent and Child Development. She asked how she might help his cause and he introduced her to the Temporary Shelter program, where abusive mothers lived with their children temporarily while learning better parenting skills. Her photographs there and at the Crisis Nursery eventually formed the basis of a 1987 exhibit at the International Center of Photography entitled “Reaching Out.” Yaffa then continued to photograph various programs at the Foundling over three decades. Her photos were featured in the organization’s promotional materials and events, as well as in news articles about the Foundling. Photographs from this collection were also featured in the 2001 book The Foundling: The Story of The New York Foundling Hospital by Martin Gottlieb, with contemporary photographs by Claire Yaffa.

The New York Foundling Hospital was established in New York City in 1869 by the Catholic Sisters of Charity as a hospital for abandoned babies. From the beginning the Foundling’s first goal was to help mothers keep their children rather than abandoning them to institutional care. Over the decades this goal led to numerous services to families and children. By 1959 the Foundling ceased officially to operate as a hospital, although it did not drop “hospital” from its name until much later. Over the next three decades the organization began to move away from large, centralized programs in favor of numerous smaller programs designed for specific needs, often partnering with local community organizations to offer services to families and children within their own communities.

This collection focuses primarily on two such programs: the Temporary Shelter and the Crisis Nursery. The Temporary Shelter was established in 1972 as part of the Foundling’s Center for Parent and Child Development. The shelter was a residence where mothers could live together with their children for up to 30 days while receiving parenting classes and other services and referrals. The Crisis Nursery was opened in 1982 as a temporary childcare facility for children under the age of 5, and at risk of abuse, to stay for up to 3 days without their parents. Later, while the Crisis Nursery continued to operate the Temporary Shelter was discontinued in favor of other programs within the Foundling's Child Abuse Prevention Services (CAPS).

The primary instigator of these programs was Dr. Vincent J. Fontana, the medical director at the Center for Parent and Child Development. Dr. Fontana was a leading expert in the field of Child Abuse and Child Maltreatment. He wrote numerous articles and books on the topic, including the influential book The Maltreated Child in 1964. He was also the chairman of the Mayor’s Task Force on Child Abuse and Neglect of the City of New York, and the Medical Editor of the journal Missing/Abused .

Additional programs represented in this collection include the skilled nursing facility at 590 Avenue of the Americas in New York City, the St. Agatha Home, Project Basement, Bronx Community Services, Pathway, Seton Day Care Center, Mother’s Social Service, Blaine Hall, and the Puerto Rico Head Start programs.

--The Medical Center for Pediatrics and Rehabilitative care, also called the “Skilled Nursing Facility,” provided therapy and services to disabled children and their families.

--The St. Agatha Home was an orphanage run by the Sisters of Charity which merged with the Foundling in 1977. In the 1980’s St. Agatha operated small group homes for mentally or physically disabled children, and also both on and off-campus group homes for other children and adolescents such as runaways and those in juvenile detention.

--Project Basement was a community services center in the Hamilton Heights neighborhood of New York City offering among other things, after school programs, child abuse prevention, domestic violence intervention, help with housing and immigration problems and a food pantry.

--Bronx Community Services was a similar community services center in the Bronx centered around foster care services and child abuse prevention services.

--The Pathway Center for Family Rehabilitation began as a program to provide rehabilitation, vocational training, and other services to drug addicted mothers and their children.

--The Seton Day Care Center was created in 1968 to provide daycare to working mothers as a way to enable mothers and their children to stay together.

--Mother’s Social Service, unofficially referred to as the “unwed mothers” or the “teen mothers” program, provided services to pregnant teenagers and new mothers.

--Blaine Hall was an evaluation and treatment center for severely abused children.

--The Foundling’s Puerto Rico programs were begun in the 1960’s and 1970’s in an effort to both find foster families for Puerto Rican children and to provide services to those families even if they moved to Puerto Rico. These programs expanded in 1984 via federal funding to establish Head Start programs. The Foundling opened Head Start programs and family services in four cities in Puerto Rico.

From the guide to the Claire Yaffa New York Foundling Hospital Photograph Collection, Bulk, 1979-1999, 1979-2012, (© 2011 New-York Historical Society)

Claire Yaffa is a freelance photographer, noted for her social realism. Her photographs portray society's less fortunate -- the homeless, the aging, the handicapped -- and focus especially on the problems of child abuse and neglect. Her work has been exhibited at the Hudson River Museum, the International Center of Photography, Sarah Lawrence College, the White Plains Museum Gallery, the United Nations, and other galleries throughout America.

Yaffa's photographs have been published in The New York Times, The Daily News, Vanity Fair, and Vogue. She has photographed for a variety of medical organizations including the National Foundation for Children with Learning Disabilities, Bronx Lebanon Hospital and Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital. She has also published two monographs of her reportage work: Reaching Out (1987) and A Dying Child is Born: The Story of Tracy (1992).

More recently, Yaffa has changed her focus from photojournalism to more poetic subjects. Her work has been published by Ruder Finn Press in three monographs, described as a series of visual poems: Moments (2004), Life's Dream (2006), and Divertissement . . . I Dreamed a Dream (2008).

In addition to taking pictures, Yaffa has served as photography editor of Westchester Magazine and photography coordinator of the United Nations Women's Arts Festival. She has also served on the Board of Directors of ICP's Archival and Acquisition Committee. In 1995, she received the Westchester Arts Council Award.

From the guide to the Claire Yaffa, Children With Aids, Photograph Collection, Bulk, 1990-2000, 1987-2010, (© 2011 New-York Historical Society)