CHARLES LORING BRACE

1
CHARLES LORING BRACE
2
Introduction

• Early History
• Efforts in New York
• Social Welfare and Social Work
• Childrens Aid Society Today and its Future

3
Early History

• Charles Loring Brace was one of the greatest
  contributing humanitarians of the social reform
  movement during the nineteenth century.

4
Early History

• Born June 9, 1826
• Graduated from Yale 1846
• Graduated from the Union Theological Seminary
  1849
• Married Letitia Neill Shortly after graduation

5
Early History

• Methodist Minister 1852
• Focused on the streets of New York.
• Won support of the upper class.

6
Early History

• Established Headed the Children's Aid Society
  1853
• Against Charity
• Believed an individual should do for himself
• Efforts
• Newsboy lodging houses
• Sunday boys meetings
• Industrial schools
• Workshops

7
Causes of Crime and Poverty

• Preventable
• Ignorance, intemperance, over-crowding, want of
  work, idleness, weakness in marriage, bad
  legislation
• Non-Preventable
• Inheritance, effects of immigration, weaknesses
  in moral and mental power

8
Faithful Beginning

• Churches would pass out Bibles and hold prayer
  meetings for delinquent youth
• Brace wrote that to attempt to prevent or cure
  the fearful moral diseases of or lowest class
  without Christianity is like trying to carry
  through a sanitary reform without
  sunlight.(Brace, 76)

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When faith wasnt enough

• The public formed the idea truant youth should be
  kept in asylums.
• Problem
• Asylums provided no independence for those kept
  there
• Fairly expensive for the number of people
  contained in them

10
Beginning Programs

• Boys Meetings
• First one was held in 1848 by Mr. A.D.F.
  Randolph.
• Were aimed at the poor bad boys of the
  metropolis area
• Mission to provide sympathy and an audience for
  their stories, and then give positive and
  influential feedback

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Formation of the Childrens Aid Society

• Formed in 1843
• Leadership composed of mainly Christians forming
  a Christian Union.
• Trustees of the organization were
  Presbyterians, Unitarians, Dutch Reforms,
  Methodists, Episcopalians, etc.

12
Starting the Society

• Many people in the community gave donations, and
  crowds of wandering little ones immediately
  found their way to the office. (Brace, 83)
• Types of children
• Ragged young girls, children driven-out by
  drunken parents, orphans, thieves, newsboys, etc.

13
First Intervention

• Development of workshops
• Children could work and gain skills
• Brace realized that if a child was educated, had
  self-control, and was neat and clean, they could
  become a successful person and make an honest
  living

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First Intervention

• Brace began to think of ways to educate the
  orphan boys in things like cleanliness and
  promptness.
• For the girls, he proposed that that they be
  educated in the needle (Brace, 96)
• They could then marry into a better class or
  become upper servants
• He felt that prostitution could be diminished
  through education as well.

15
Helping the Homeless

• Brace was impressed by the street-rats ability
  to find the things they needed on their own.
• In order to help them, he needed to find them
• Places to live, and
• Treat them as independent dealers and give them
  nothing without payment, but at the same time
  offer them much more for their money than they
  could get anywhere else. (Brace, 100)

16
Helping the Homeless

• Created shelters
• Six cents for a bath and a bed
• Four cents for supper
• These shelters became known as lodging houses and
  rapidly got the attention of the newsboys.
• They were also educated through evening classes
  and were required to attend Sunday Boys Meetings
  

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Helping the Homeless

• In evening classes they were taught
• How to act in public
• How to be good citizens
• Cleanliness
• Workings of the economy
• The first lodging house was opened in 1854 and by
  1871, the New York Newsboys lodging house had
  lodged
• 91, 326 different boys. (Brace, 108)

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Girls Lodging Houses

• The first shelter cost five cents a night, and if
  they could not pay, they offered their labor in
  return for the stay.
• These shelters turned into girls lodging houses.
• Purpose To reform habits and character through
  material and moral appliances, and through an
  entire change of circumstances to relieve
  suffering and misfortune. (Brace, 304)

19
Girls Lodging Houses

• Efforts were very effective.
• Restriction had to be made as to who could stay
  for the night due to the high turn-out numbers of
  girls in need.
• Attempted to only receive girls who had the most
  potential and were young.
• If a girl was too mature, or over 18, or a
  prostitute, she could be denied access. (Brace,
  306)

20
Free Industrial Schools

• Schools needed to be created to educate the boys
  and separate ones to educate the girls.
• Agents went out into New York searching for
  children to attend these schools
• Had to convince parents to allow their kids to be
  educated
• Looked for children in need of food, clothing,
  moral instruction, and training in industry

21
Free Industrial Schools

• Students were given food and clothing for good
  behavior.
• Many of these schools targeted girls, because
  they were seen as the ones that encountered the
  most evil in society, and because many efforts
  were already in place to help the boys.
• At first there was no lodging with these schools.
  Lodging houses then came to be formed at them as
  time went on, allowing for day and night classes
  to take place as well as reading-rooms to be
  formed and shelter to be given all in one place.
  (Brace, 180)

22
Helping Minorities and Immigrants

• First attempts were with the Germans
• Created an association of women, mostly
  Unitarians, who were interested in the morals of
  the German poor.
• They created schools to help poor, young, German
  girls.
• Next effort was with the Irish
• Brace had little religious contact with them as
  they are Roman Catholic
• He made this quarter his special parish for
  visitations. (Brace, 152)

23
Orphan Trains

• Brace felt that for children of the outcast
  poor, a more radical cure is needed than the
  usual influences of school and church (Brace,
  224)
• Childrens Aid Society felt that the best of all
  asylums for the outcast child is the farmers
  home (Brace, 225)
• Felt that this would be the best cure for
  juvenile pauperism.

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Funding

• Education of the public and laying the wants and
  methods before them (Brace, 280)
• He rarely asked directly for money, and used
  pulpits to deliver sermons almost every day of
  the week.
• Goal To get the publics attention and then a
  reaction from them.
• He was also in contact with the media on a daily
  basis.

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Funding

• His efforts got him a large group of supporters,
  mostly those with money.
• Some of the supporters approached legislation
  with the cause and how it could reduce tax
  burdens and better the community.
• In 1870, the CAS received 200,000.
• Half from public authorities
• 1/5 from individuals
• The rest from investments

26
Reading Rooms

• 1858 Reading Rooms were established.
• Designed to offer improvements to all members of
  society.
• No alcohol was served at these facilities, and
  Brace thought that serving coffee would compete
  with the saloons, but that was not the case.

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Misery Row

• Brace worked with young males in this area who
  were known for their bad behavior and laziness.
• He thought the first step in treating them was to
  send visitors to go and spend time with the
  boys and gain their trust and respect.
• They then opened reading rooms, industrial
  schools, lodging houses, and set up Sunday boys
  meetings in this area.
• Eventually these boys were to be adopted into
  hopeful families on the western farms.

28
Licensing

• Brace felt that something needed to be done to
  help the children who could not attend school
  because of work or other reasons.
• He thought an act should be passed to make
  children working in street trades acquire a
  license to do that.
• This license had to be renewed every three months.

29
Licensing

• If a worker was found without a license they
  would be arrested.
• To get a license, the child had to prove that
  he/she is attending school for at least three
  hours a day.
• Problem Children were good liars
• As a result, half-time schools and nights schools
  were opened for the working children.

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Night Schools

• Most children would work 8-10 hour days, and then
  attend school after that.
• In the winter of 1870-71, there were eleven night
  schools in operation.
• Of the children in these schools
• 1,500-2,000 were under 15 and employed in
  manufacturing companies
• Between 15 and 20, the number rose to 8,000
  (Brace, 356)

31
Final Days

• Believed that charities needed to be run as
  businesses to succeed.
• He realized that governmental funding was
  essential to operation.
• Felt that the worst thing a charity in a large
  city could do, is multiply.
• Two agencies of charity are continued where one
  is needed. (Brace, 383)

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Final Goal

• End goal was to place poor, unfortunate children
  with farm families and put them to work for the
  family and a better life.
• Childrens Aid Societys primary purpose
• Only to give assistance where it bears directly
  on character, discourage pauperism, to cherish
  independence, to place the poorest of the city,
  the homeless children, not in Alms-houses or
  Asylums, but on farms, where they support
  themselves and add wealth to the nation to place
  all their thousands of little subjects under such
  influences and such training that they will never
  need either private or public charity. (Brace,
  397)

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Braces tie to Social Welfare

• Brace had Good intentions during his 37 years of
  work with the poor children of NY
• He started the road for improving the lives of
  the lower class children

34
Social Welfare

• Started the road for improving the lives of the
  lower class children
• His focus was the children and educating them to
  become successful adults
• Can be looked at early forms of child protection

35
Social Welfare

• Brace had women enter the homes of the children
  and decide if they needed to be removed
• This can be seen as early forms of Social Workers

36
Mission

• To do whatever New York citys neediest children
  need
• Childrens Aid Society http//www.childrensaidsoc
  iety.org

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The Childrens Aid Society Today

• One of the largest budgets at 70 million dollars
  a year
• 91 cents of every dollar is spent directly on
  services for children
• Over 120,000 children and families in New York
  receive help
• Childrens Aid Society http//www.childrensaidsoc
  iety.org

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The Childrens Aid Society - New and Developing
Projects 2006-2007

• Connecting Disconnected Youth
• Hope Academy
• Juvenile/Justice Community Re-Entry and City
  Challenge
• Youth Advocacy
• Next Generation Teen Center
• Family Life and Sex Education
• Health Services

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The Childrens Aid SocietyNew and Developing
Projects 2006-2007

• Bronx Regional Expansion
• Mentoring program
• Aged out foster care youth
• Empowerment Schools
• Transform public schools of New York City
• 1,500 sites nationally and internationally
• After school programs, family resource centers,
  Saturday programs, summer camps and community
  resources

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The Childrens Aid SocietyNew and Developing
Projects 2006-2007

• African American Male Initiative
• help African American males succeed
• Fitness and Nutrition
• promote exercise and eating healthy
• Teen Pregnancy Prevention, Sexual Education and
  Reproductive Health
• Family planning
• Foster care reunification