Charleston Orphan House

The Charleston Orphan House, the first municipal orphanage in the U.S., was created by an act of the city council on October 18, 1790, at the instigation of council member, John Robertson. By this act, the Orphan House was charged with "supporting and educating poor orphan children, and those of poor distressed and disabled parents, who are unable to maintain them". The Orphan House stood on the corner of St. Philip and Calhoun Streets. It officially opened on October 18, 1794, and the original building was renovated in 1853.

The Orphan House was governed by a board of commissioners, which was annually elected by the city council. The commissioners met weekly. Each commissioner served alternately as visiting commissioner, who was responsible for investigating applicants for admission or indenture.

The building and operating funds for the Orphan House came from both public and private sources. The city council appropriated funds on an annual basis, and state law also permitted the Orphan House to share in funds collected from escheated property. In 1808, a private fund was established for donations and bequests from philanthropic citizens. Private funds were invested in stocks and bonds and the interest used. Donations were also made in the form of food, fuel, clothing, and land.

The officers of the Orphan House, as the staff was known, consisted of the steward, matron, nurses, teachers, and the sewing mistress. Both the steward and matron were elected by the city council. Most of the officers lived on the institution grounds. The steward was responsible for the overall operation of the Orphan House. These duties included responsibility for supplies, supervision of inmates and staff, and recording the commissioners' meeting minutes. In 1869, the duties of the steward and principal of the school were combined into the single new office of superintendent.

The matron was in charge of day-to-day operations of the Orphan House including food preparation, washing clothes, and the supervision of nurses. Nurses were responsible for the daily supervision of the children. After the creation of the office of superintendent in 1869, nurses became responsible for many of the duties formerly performed by the matron. After 1870, nurses were referred to as assistant matrons.

Children received an education which, until the 1850s consisted of basic reading and writing, but was expanded to include mathematics, literature, geography, and elocution. The sewing mistress taught older girls to make clothes, blankets, and sheets which helped the Orphan House function as a self-sufficient and isolated entity.

Children, known as inmates, could be admitted to the institution by a church, city warden, parent, or guardian. After a short investigation by the visiting commissioner, full orphans and children with living parents were admitted. The child was indentured to the Orphan House, which then had the right to bind the child out at a later date. The indenture was a legal contract, by which the parent or guardian lost all control over the child. Boys at the age of fourteen and girls at the age of twelve were eligible to be "bound out" or apprenticed to a master for the purpose of learning a trade. Masters were required to train, house, clothe, and supervise the child's moral and religous development. Boys were apprenticed until age twenty-one, and girls until age eighteen.

After 1900, the strict isolationist rules were relaxed. Children were no longer apprenticed, and many returned to their families or were allowed to leave at age sixteen to find employment. In the 1920s, they were allowed to attend public schools. In 1948 the board of commissioners asked the Child Welfare League of America to study the institution. Their report questioned almost all aspects of its operations. The city council approved their recommendations and, in 1951, moved the institution to new facilities in North Charleston called Oak Grove. The original Orphan House building was then sold to Sears Roebuck Company and demolished in 1952. The new facility, with its more modern policies, became the Carolina Youth Development Center, still in existence today, although its legal name is still the Charleston Orphan House.

From the description of Agency history record. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 155845277