Collection JHH, Record group/Fonds 13
1895-1924 - inclusive
The Johns Hopkins Hospital (JHH) Colored Orphan Asylum began operations in 1875. The orphanage provided for the maintenance, education, and vocational training of African American children in Baltimore who had lost one or both of their parents. The Colored Orphan Asylum was founded at the behest of Mr. Johns Hopkins, a wealthy Quaker merchant and banker who left his fortune to establish several institutions after his death, including a university, hospital, and “Orphans’ Home.” Baltimore was always home to a large African American population, but that community grew significantly after Maryland abolished slavery in 1864. Many freedpeople migrated to the city in search of family members, opportunities, and greater autonomy. In a city where services and assistance for African Americans were extremely limited, the Colored Orphan Asylum likely met a need in the Black community. The Asylum primarily cared for female children and provided food and housing, medical care, education, and religious instruction, as well as training in domestic service so that wards were fitted for “respectable employment” when they came of age. From 1875 to 1914, the Colored Orphan Asylum operated as its own facility, first on Biddle Street and then at a property at Remington Avenue and King Street. In 1914, the Johns Hopkins Hospital Board of Trustees converted the Asylum buildings into a convalescent home for African American children who required orthopedics care. That facility, the Johns Hopkins Hospital School and Convalescent Home for Colored Children, closed in 1917 due to Hospital funding issues. While the Convalescent Home was in operation, a small number of Colored Orphan Asylum wards continued to live on the premises with a matron; the rest were placed in private homes as domestic servants or boarded at other schools or institutions. After the Convalescent Home closed in 1917, any wards of the Colored Orphan Asylum who were still living onsite were also placed or boarded elsewhere. The Johns Hopkins Hospital continued to manage wards’ care until each one reached the age of majority (21), the last young women coming of age in 1923.
When the JHH Colored Orphan Asylum opened in 1875, it did so in partnership with an existing Baltimore organization, the Shelter for Colored Orphans. Founded in the 1860s, the Shelter relied heavily on donations and struggled financially. Knowing that the JHH Board of Trustees planned to build a new orphanage for African American children, the Shelter suggested that Johns Hopkins Hospital take over management and financial responsibility for its facility while the Hospital’s own asylum was being built. The Trustees accepted the proposal and began operating the Colored Orphan Asylum on West Biddle Street in the spring of 1875. This was originally meant to be a short-term arrangement, but the JHH Colored Orphan Asylum remained at that site, with expanded facilities, for almost twenty years. (Newspaper reports from this period sometimes still refer to the orphanage as the Shelter for Colored Orphans or the Shelter for Colored Orphans and Friendless Children.) In 1894, the Asylum moved to a property at Remington Avenue and King Street, where it operated until 1914.
The orphanage was overseen by the Committee on the Colored Orphan Asylum, one of four standing committees on the JHH Board of Trustees. The Committee was responsible for supervising the Asylum’s management and enforcing rules and regulations for the admission and dismission of children. Closer management of day-to-day operations was overseen by a Board of Visitors (sometimes referred to as "Lady Managers"), matrons, teachers, and other staff. The Asylum’s Bylaws and rules stated that members of the Board of Visitors were to be chosen from among the (presumably white) “women of the Protestant churches of the city.” Board members included Hopkins family members, as well as wives of JHH Trustees. The Board of Visitors was organized into several standing committees for the house, admissions and dismissions, school, religious instruction, clothing, purchasing, food, and nominations. Annual reports to the JHH Board of Trustees often included information for each of these departments. In 1913, the recently created JHH Social Service Department joined the Board of Visitors and other staff in managing the Colored Orphan Asylum and supervising its wards. A social worker was assigned exclusively to the Colored Orphan Asylum and played an increasingly important role as more girls began living offsite. Additional information about specific members of the management and staff is appended at the end of the historical note.
The records reveal very little about the children who were wards of the JHH Colored Orphan Asylum, including their family origins or the circumstances which brought them to the Asylum. Initially, the Asylum provided care for both boys and girls, but over time it focused entirely on serving girls and young women. The Asylum provided schooling onsite until 1909, when some wards began to attend a segregated public school for African American children. Subjects included reading, spelling, writing, arithmetic, geography, physiology, drawing, domestic science, hygiene, physical culture, and morals and manners. Beyond education and religious instruction, managers and staff focused on preparing young women for a future in domestic service. Vocational training was a common feature of orphanages in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as they sought to prepare children to be productive, self-reliant adults. Asylum wards received training in cooking, hand and machine sewing, laundry, and house work and practiced those skills onsite. Reports noted that most of the labor at the Colored Orphan Asylum was performed by the children, usually without compensation.
At different times in the Asylum’s history, young women were considered to be “of age” and no longer the Asylum’s responsibility at age 16, 18, and 21 years. When wards came of age, they were usually placed as servants in private homes selected or approved by Asylum staff. When the Asylum stopped operating as its own facility in 1914, it was no longer an option for all wards to remain in residence until they reached the age of majority. Instead, many young women were placed in live-in domestic service positions while they were still minors. Although living independently, they remained under the care and supervision of the JHH Social Service Department until they came of age. In at least some cases, the Social Service Department maintained some control over wards’ finances during this interim period, directing wages to be set aside in savings accounts in the girls’ names. After the Asylum’s closure in 1914, most young women continued to be directed toward domestic service, but opportunities expanded for a few. Several young women were placed in African American preparatory schools, including the Hampton Institute (Hampton, Virginia), Manassas Industrial School (Manassas, Virginia), and St. Paul’s Normal and Industrial School (Lawrenceville, Virginia).
The JHH Colored Orphan Asylum was a white-led institution shaped by racism, white supremacy, and contemporary beliefs about gender, class, and biological determinism. The white men and women associated with the Asylum’s management spoke about it as a work of benevolence and “a power for good to the colored race.” They wanted to instill habits of industry, discipline, and self-reliance, as well as prepare wards to be “good women and useful citizens.” Unfortunately, not all African American children were seen as equally capable of achieving this end. The Board of Trustees’ Committee and Asylum managers expressed concern about “objectionable children” who they perceived as having disciplinary, behavioral, and/or intellectual problems and deficiencies and worried further that these traits might be passed on to the next generation. Members of the Social Service Department also expressed concern about the so-called “sexual immorality” they observed in some young women, who were seen as more difficult to govern as they got older. Although a charitable institution, the Asylum had a selective admissions policy, required applicants to undergo physical and mental evaluations prior to admission, and exercised the right to terminate assistance for existing residents. Some wards with “objectionable” behavior were transferred to other institutions permanently, or on a temporary basis as punishment. Melvale Industrial School for Colored Girls, which had a reputation for poor conditions, was a frequent transfer site. Although not surprising, it is significant that Board members and managers of the Colored Orphan Asylum saw domestic service as the life these young women were best suited for. In the name of training and economy, the Asylum exploited the labor of the children in its care. For white households, it served as an available pool of domestic labor. The fact that a small number of girls were eventually placed in preparatory schools like the Hampton Institute is a reminder that JHH and Colored Orphan Asylum staff knew that alternative models and paths were available.
The JHH Colored Orphan Asylum stopped functioning as its own facility in 1914, when the Board of Trustees decided to convert the buildings into a convalescent home for African American children. Another children's facility, the Harriet Lane Home (HLH) for Invalid Children, opened on the Johns Hopkins Hospital campus two years earlier. The HLH provided care to African American children in a segregated ward, but its patient capacity was initially small and the number of beds for Black children was even smaller. The Board of Trustees and the Committee on the Colored Orphan Asylum argued that “a much greater service would be rendered to the colored race” by converting the Colored Orphan Asylum into a convalescent home for Black children “than by operating this institution entirely as an orphan’s home.” That decision may also have been influenced by contemporary changes in thinking about children’s services. Child welfare agencies were moving away from institutional care in favor of placing children in foster homes, or keeping them at home by providing financial assistance to struggling families.
When the Johns Hopkins Hospital School and Convalescent Home for Colored Children opened in 1914, it was purportedly the first facility of its kind for African Americans. The Home accommodated 30-40 patients at a time who needed a prolonged convalescence and/or correctional treatment after an operation at JHH. The facility also offered school and occupational training for longer-term residents. A Board of Trustees committee oversaw the School and Convalescent Home, along with Hospital nursing staff. The Home was one of several sites at which student nurses gained experience. There was a brief attempt to train several young women from the Colored Orphan Asylum to work as ward-maids in the Home, but it was abandoned as unsuccessful. A patient log book for 1914-1917 shows that the Home cared for approximately 200 male and female children during its operation. Due to financial concerns, the Board of Trustees decided to temporarily close the Home in June 1917. The Hospital needed to cut operating costs and determined that the Convalescent Home was the only department that could be closed “without seriously interfering with the teaching and disorganizing the work of the Hospital as a whole.” The closure was meant to be temporary, but the Convalescent Home never reopened “due to lack of funds.” Some members of the African American community expressed their displeasure at the Home’s closure, including the Maryland Baptist Colored Preachers Association, which sent a letter of protest to the Board of Trustees. Following the Convalescent Home’s closure, African American children continued to have access to care at the Harriet Lane Home for Invalid Children.
Since the closure of the JHH Colored Orphan Asylum and the JHH School and Convalescent Home for Colored Children, questions have arisen about Mr. Johns Hopkins’ motivations for founding the Asylum; the degree to which the JHH Board of Trustees carried out the Founder’s wishes; and the reasons for the closure of both facilities. As a longtime resident of Baltimore and a contributor to many charitable causes, Hopkins was undoubtedly aware that much of the city’s African American population was living in poverty and had limited access to resources and services. He (as well as some members of the Board of Trustees) worked with other charities that assisted African American children and their families, including the Baltimore Association for the Improvement of the Condition of the Poor and the Shelter for Colored Orphans. Initially, the Board of Trustees approached the Colored Orphan Asylum with the same level of careful planning accorded to the Hospital. Board members studied similar institutions as potential models; a large tract of land was purchased as a site for the facility. John R. Niernsee, the architect who made the original plans for the Hospital, also created detailed plans for the Orphan Asylum. But ongoing financial concerns and challenges in building the Hospital resulted in the Trustees never building the new, 300-400-bed facility that Johns Hopkins had imagined for orphaned boys and girls. In its different locations, the Colored Orphan Asylum was never able to accommodate more than 40-75 children at a time and it served girls almost exclusively. Into the 1890s, the Trustees continued to state their intention to build a new, larger facility in keeping with the Founder’s wishes, but those plans never came to fruition. When the Board decided to convert the Asylum into the JHH School and Convalescent Home for Colored Children in 1914, they noted that some Hopkins family members were concerned “that the original purpose of the Colored Orphan Asylum to train servants should not be wholly given up.” This aspect of the Asylum’s work was sustained for several years insofar as they continued to provide training, experience, and job placement for individual young women who were already in the Asylum’s custody until they reached the age of majority. The Trustees may have felt that the JHH School and Convalescent Home for Colored Children still met the spirit of the Founder’s wishes, given that it still served African American children in need. Unfortunately, the Convalescent Home was the first department to be sacrificed in light of ongoing financial concerns.
Management and Staff:
COMMITTEE ON THE COLORED ORPHAN ASYLUM, BOARD OF TRUSTEES: The first members of the Committee in 1875 were James P. Elliott, Thomas M. Smith, William Hopkins, Francis White, and Francis T. King, ex-officio. The names of Committee members (and other management and staff) for subsequent years can be found in the collection and in related materials such as the Board of Trustees meeting minutes and the Reports of the Superintendent for Johns Hopkins Hospital.
BOARD OF VISITORS: Mrs. Julia Valentine, who was President of the Board of Visitors for the Shelter for Colored Orphans, continued in that capacity for the Colored Orphan Asylum in 1875 and for several years after. The Board of Visitors typically had as many as 25-30 members, many of whom served for several years at a time. In 1875, the Board consisted of: Mrs. Alex. Turnbull, Mrs. Henry Stockbridge, Mrs. Dr. C. Winslow, Mrs. Cyrus Blackburn, Mrs. James J. Janney, Mrs. M. Jacobs, Mrs. John M. Smith, Mrs. James P. Elliott, Mrs. Thomas H. Pewtner, Mrs. Dr. William Riley, Mrs. R. A. MacPherson, Mrs. Miles White, Mrs. William K. Carson, Mrs. Joseph T. Pancoast, Mrs. James Carey, Mrs. Charles Reese, Mrs. Gerard Reese, Mrs. T. R. Matthews, Mrs. N. K. Hawley, Mrs. George S. McCullough, Miss Isabella Tyson, Miss Laura E. Pewtner, Miss Alice Brooks, Miss Sallie Needles, Miss Cara R. Clarke, Miss Annie T. King, Miss Alice Fouerden, and Mrs. Henrietta Norris. The names of Board of Visitors officers and members for subsequent years can be found in the collection and in related materials such as the Board of Trustees meeting minutes and the Reports of the Superintendent for Johns Hopkins Hospital.
PHYSICIANS: Dr. Randolph Winslow served as physician to the Asylum from the 1870s to the 1890s. Winslow was affiliated with the University of Maryland Medical School, serving as a Demonstrator of Anatomy and Lecturer and Professor of Surgery. In 1900, the Board of Trustees transferred all Asylum medical care to staff at the Johns Hopkins Hospital.
MATRONS AND OTHER STAFF: Sarah Isabella White, a Quaker who attended the Homewood Meeting in Baltimore, served as Matron of the Colored Orphan Asylum 1895-1905. Two of her daughters, Mary and Ellen White, lived onsite with her and helped with supervision and teaching. Mary White took over as Matron 1905-1910. Subsequent matrons (including acting matrons, assistant matrons, girls’ matrons, and night matrons) included L. M. Johns, Edith L. Gibbs, Mary A. Hamilton, Georgie J. Hilton, M. P. Irwin, Mrs. Irving, Lucinda Richardson, Fannie E. Stafford, Anne B. Scoville, Laura L. Parker, K. H. Wannebo, Mary Beal, Addie W. Brown, Emma Cheek, Nettie Short, and Columbia Butler. Records specifically identify Laura L. Parker and Addie W. Brown as African American, but the above list undoubtedly includes other Black women. African American women were increasingly relied on as matrons in later years, as more girls were living offsite, including at the Colored Young Women’s Christian Association. The Orphan Asylum employed African Americans in a number of different positions, although more research is needed to determine the racial identity of individual staff members. With a few exceptions, Asylum managers generally did not identify employees by race, although some classified advertisements for cooks and assistant matrons specifically asked for “white” or “colored” applicants. In addition to the matrons above, the related materials specifically identify Alice E. Mitchell, a kindergarten teacher, as an African American woman.
SOCIAL SERVICE DEPARTMENT: When the JHH Social Service Department began operations in 1907, it was under the direction of Helen B. Pendleton, who previously served as an agent of the Charity Organization Society of Baltimore for many years. When the Department became involved in supervising wards at the Colored Orphan Asylum in 1913, it was under the direction of Margaret S. Brogden. Social workers assigned to the Colored Orphan Asylum included Grace Keech (1913-1916); Miss M. L. Boswell (1916); Jane H. Ross (1917); and Elizabeth Kreuger (1917-1924).
JOHNS HOPKINS HOSPITAL SCHOOL AND CONVALESCENT HOME FOR COLORED CHILDREN: The Board of Trustees Committee on the JHH School and Convalescent Home for Colored Children included the following members from 1915 to 1917: John M. Glenn, William H. Grafflin, Henry D. Harlan, and Richard J. White. The School and Convalescent Home was initially under the charge of head nurse, Corinna D. French. Other nurses affiliated with the Home include Lottie Lahr, Jessie Berry, Cornelia Ransome, Mary Foos, Frieda Wenke, Mary Sullivan, and Mary Whitney.
Source:Johns Hopkins Hospital Colored Orphan Asylum