Orphans in 19th Century Victorian England The Victorian Era was a time of social evolution as well as technological and economic advance. A distinct, unique middle class was formed alongside the traditional working class and wealthy aristocracy. However, there were certain individuals that fell outside this model of Victorian society. The “abandoned child” was society’s scapegoat- a person without a past, without connections, without status. They could appear in any class, at any time. The upper and middle classes often had a somewhat romantic perception of them, due to their prevalence in Victorian literature. Novels like Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights made heroines/heroes out of orphans, portraying them as respectable yet troubled (Cunningham,“Orphan Texts”). However, orphans were also often treated with disdain and distrust, due to their reputation as “criminally prone” individuals. They were a victim of classic “Victorian contradictions” that characterized most aspects of Victorian society. Victorian Definition of “Orphan” When we hear the word “orphan” we imagine a child whose parents have both died tragic deaths. Indeed, there were plenty of these pitiable creatures in Victorian society – the living and working conditions of the poor were so unsanitary and crowded that diseases such as typhus and tuberculosis often spread unchecked, sending many of their victims to the grave (Czarnik, “Living Conditions”). However, children were often considered “orphans” if they had one surviving parent, had been abandoned by their family, or were forced out into the world because of overcrowding at home (Cunningham, “Orphan Texts”). In 1861, it is estimated that 11% of children had lost a father by the age of 10, 11% a mother, and 1% had lost both parents (Czarnik). Adoption A very common fate of orphans was adoption. They were often taken in by relatives or neighbors, and even, on occasion, strangers wishing to raise them as their own children. In England, there were no laws concerning adoption until the 1920s, so most adoption was informal. Children who were adopted by their own social class were usually treated fairly and equally… however, if they were adopted by a family whose status was above and beyond their original class, they were frequently mistreated and neglected. Children of different social classes were not encouraged to fraternize, so if an orphan was taken into a household where higher class children lived, they could be forbidden to even speak to them (Czarnik). Education Orphans sometimes met another fate… being placed in an educational institution. Many philanthropists donated money to these “schools” for the express purpose of boarding and educating orphans.
The Orphan Train is a compelling story about a young girl, Molly Ayer, and an older woman, Vivian Daly. These two live two completely different yet similar lives. This book goes back and forth between the point of views of Molly and Vivian. Molly is seventeen and lives with her foster parents, Ralph and Dina, in Spruce Harbor, Maine. Vivian is a ninety-one year old widow from Ireland who moved to the United States at a young age. Molly soon gets into trouble with the law and has to do community service. Molly’s boyfriend, Jack, gets his mom to get her some service to do. Jack’s mom allows her to help Vivian clean out her attic. While Molly is getting her hours completed, Vivian explains her past to her. Vivian tells her about all the good times and bad in her life. She tells her about how she had to take a train, the orphan train, all around the country after her family died in a fire. She told her about all the families she stayed with and all the friends she made along the way, especially about Dutchy. Dutchy is a boy she met on the orphan train and lost contact with for numerous years, but then found each other again and got married and pregnant. Sadly, Dutchy died when he was away in the army shortly after Vivian got pregnant. When Vivian had her child, she decided to give her up for adoption. Molly and Vivian grew very close throughout the time they spent together. Molly knows that Dina, her foster mother, is not very fond of her and tells her to leave. Having no place to go, Vivian let her stay at her house.
Despite the connection between the girls, Twyla still feels alienated by the others in the shelter. “Nobody else wanted to play with us because we weren’t real orphans with beautiful dead parents in the sky” (10). The status of “real” versus “non-real” orphan becomes surrogate racism in the shelter. The value of this new classification of the girls is elucidated by the lack of distinct race between Twyla and Roberta, as they become united in the condition of living parents. Their race falls second to whatever else is used to alienate
Victorian homes offered children a large network of various caregivers built in to the family structure. Each married couple had an average of six children, but the average household was considerably larger. Rarely would one find the nuclear family living alone. Only thirty-six per cent of families consisted simply of a set of parents and their children. Extended families were also rare. Only 10 per cent of families had three or more generations under one roof. The average household would more likely be a conglomeration of a nuclear family along with any number of random outsiders. The stragglers could include any combination of lodgers, distant relatives, apprentices and/or servants.
The issue of childhood mortality is written into the works of Gaskell and Dickens with alarming regularity. In Mary Barton, Alice tells Mary and Margaret that before Will was orphaned, his family had buried his six siblings. There is also the death of the Wilson twins, as well as Tom Barton's early death --an event which inspires his father John to fight for labor rights because he's certain his son would have survived if he'd had better food. In Oliver Twist, Dick's early death is typical of workhouse children who never recover from years of chronic malnutrition. And in Dombey and Son, Paul demonstrates that wealth does not guarantee longevity, as we watch him steadily weakened by some mysterious illness. Evidence is everywhere that Gaskell, Dickens, and many of their contemporaries, used fiction to chronicle a sad fact of l9th century life: Many children didn't live to become adults.
Stemming from models developed in Rome under Marcus Aurelius and Florence’s Innocenti, orphans were first nursed by peasant women, then adopted or apprenticed by the time they were seven or eight years old (Simpson 136). Care of the orphans (and also the sick, the poor, the elderly, and the mentally ill) was first the responsibility of the church, but with increased legislation, the responsibility gradually fell under the state (Simpson 137). Pennsylvania passed such a “poor law” in 1705, establishing an “Overseer of the Poor” for each township. Each overseer was responsible for finding funds for children and more commonly, for finding positions of servitude or apprenticeship (7). Such a model of short-term care followed by adoption, apprenticeship, or indentured servitude became the standard for dealing with orphaned children. The development of specific orphanages or child asylums, however, did not come until later in the nineteenth century. Orphaned children were first treated in almshouses, first established in Philadelphia in 1731 (7). Poorhouses, workhouses, and almshouses, all essentially the same institution, housed both adults and children without homes. Residents were seen as nearly free sources of labor, working in sweatshops or nearby mines in the case of several British poorhouses (5).
In the year 1562, there were laws enacted that allowed the placement of poor children into care services until they were old enough to care for themselves. When the idea came to the U.S. not many children liked the idea of being placed into a foster home. They were often abused and exploited. However, this was allowed by law and the homes were considered better for the children because unlike almshouses children were taught different trades, and were not constantly exposed to bad surrounding and immature adults. Various forms of indenturing children persisted into the first decade of the century. Benjamin Eaton became the nation’s first foster child in the year 1636, he was 7 years old.
Some children are orphaned for various reasons. Some children are orphaned because their parents are deceased. Others are dropped off at an orphanage because their parents cannot care for their basic needs of life. Tree-ear is a Korean orphan in the book, A Single Shard. He is being raised by Crane-man who is crippled, old man. Ruckel, a Romanian orphan, is an orphan, who lives in three different places, in an article about how not having parents or not knowing who children’s parents are can have an effect on brain development. Although orphans share many of the same experiences, each one has his or her own story.
the best of toys, clothes and education and it was absurd to even consider the
As the narrator begins his description of Miss Giles, he says, “Lillian always had a knack with babies and could put even the most difficult ones down for a nap within minutes” (118). When the narrator shares that Miss Giles’ favorite child is the “ugliest, fussiest baby ever born” (119), the narrator shows the readers Miss Giles’ goodwill and kindly feelings toward the baby, Julian Cash, that everyone else rejects or scorns, and thus displays her resilience to conform to societal norms or be weathered by the judgment of others. Miss Giles, years later, agrees to care for two unknown children, even though Social Services has deemed her too old to be on their official registry of foster families. The willingness of Miss Giles to take on care for the two children, Keith and the baby, exemplifies her unwavering altruism in childcare. Upon the arrival of Keith and the baby, Miss Giles refrains from complaint or doubt, and “goes to make up a crib and a cot with clean sheets” (119). Miss Giles never asks questions or hesitates when faced with taking care of children, she simply performs the job. Miss Giles is tough, and able to overcome the problems of the difficultly of childcare in her age and her hearing problem that she faces. As the narrator continues to introduce Miss Giles to the readers, the narrator observes that, “a long time ago, Lillian was in love with Charles Verity’s great-grandson, but he went to New York and married a rich girl, and Lillian stayed put” (119). Miss Giles does not dwell on the departure of the love of her life across the United States, but instead, channels her loss of love for a spouse into love for taking care of orphaned or foster children. Finally, Miss Giles is resilient in her response to the urgent situation with which she faces when left with the infant, nearly dead body of Julian Cash. When Miss Giles
Orphans are children who have no biological parents to care for them. In the novel A Single Shard, Tree-ear is a young orphan in 12th century Korea. An essay based on an orphan by Jon Hamilton shows how the brain develops based on a biological parent. Tree-ear and Ruckel, the orphan in the essay, were both orphans growing up with little for themselves. They also had several differences.
The orphan trains are an unknown time period in American history, where children were taken from urban centers and shipped west in order to start new lives. Many children had one or more parents still living but their parents could not afford to take care of them. Siblings were split up and often never saw one another again. Some children found loving families, but others were abused and treated as slaves. The hardships that the children faced helped shaped laws and regulations for child welfare, labor laws, and adoption laws. It had its biggest impact on the foster care system and how it works today.
...em to the New York Foundling Hospital and The Children’s Aid Society. Still other children were taken in by these organizations from schools or orphanages. Teachers at a child’s school contacted a faculty member at either The Children’s Aid Society or the New York Foundling Society in order to make arrangements for the child to be taken into the care of one of the two. When orphanages were overflowing, they began to send children that had been there for a while to these organizations to find a new family. The last way children could have been brought to the care of the two societies was to be recruited by an agent. Often times the children that were brought in by agents were those that were prostitutes or those that were living on the streets. In any case, all these children were those who probably could not have succeeded in their lives while living in New York.
Orphan Train, written by Christina Baker Kline, is a profoundly emotional tale of a young adolescent girl living in foster care. Molly Ayer is a 17-year-old teenage "orphan" (Kline, 2013). Despite Molly Ayer's mother still being alive; she is not emotionally stable enough to care for her after the loss of her husband in a tragic car accident. Molly Ayer reveals that she feels like an orphan to Vivian Daly, an older woman who shares many of the same experiences Molly has gone through in foster care. They are able to make a meaningful connection almost immediately despite their lack of willingness to open up to strangers. Although Orphan Train discusses many significant topics such as immigration, discrimination, being a young woman on your own, etc., the topic that moved me the most in this novel was foster care. Foster care has always been a contentious issue in this country and in most civilized countries around the
Since 2005, the number of children in Chinese orphanages has been declining at a steady rate. In spite of that, around 10,000 adolescents are abandoned and introduced into these already overflowing orphanages annually. This has been an ongoing issue, but despite recent efforts to rehabilitate orphanages and their ability to bring in new children, the problem has yet to find a sustainable solution. However, there are many ways that this issue can be resolved, such as adoption. International adoption helps abandoned children find new homes with loving families. With the invention of baby hatches, which provide protected areas to leave a baby who can no longer be cared for, abandoned young are less likely to suffer before being brought to
When a child becomes an orphan, the extended family of the child has the option of adopting them. This is known as domestic adoption. It is currently the most effective solution for orphans because they quickly receive a new home. When the orphan is domestically adopted they are able to live with family, whom they know and trust. They are also able to continue to speak the same langue and experience the same culture. This mitigates the transition so it’s much less traumatic for the child. However, in many cases, the extended family of the orphan already has so many children and cannot afford to care for any more. Unfortunately, these children are not as lucky as others and are sent to an orphanage, waiting day by day for some place to call home. In the orphanages, the children often share small beds and enough food, clothes and shoes for all of the children aren’t always available. Most orphanages are very straight-laced and stringent due to the fact that very few adults are caring for an abundance of unwieldy children. Living in an orphanage is not equitable to the young children. These children are very needy as well because of the trauma that they have just gone through with loosing their parents. Instead of getting extra attention and care they have to share the time with many other children.