The Transformation of Catholic Orphanages: Cleveland, 1851-1996

Abstract

In 1886 formidable three-storied brick structure of St. Vincent's Orphanage in Cleveland-already more than three decades old-- housed about 200 boys, children of impoverished Catholics. Many were German or Irish, and almost without exception they were white. The orphanage was staffed by thirty Sisters of Charity of St. Augustine and funded by diocesan collections and orphans' fairs. A century later, St. Vincent's had merged with other Catholic orphanages and evolved into Parmadale System of Family Services. On its site lived a very few children with serious emotional and behavioral problems; its professional staff provided a wide range of off-site psychiatric and social services; its funding was almost completely public; its clients were children and families of all creeds and races. Responding to national developments, needs of local community, and their own institutional imperatives, Cleveland's Catholic orphanages had transformed themselves and Catholic social services. Catholic orphanages were possibly most used and are certainly least studied of American child-care institutions.1 Although most sectarian orphanages experienced similar changes in services, staff, and clientele from mid-nineteenth to late twentieth centuries, Catholic experience has been differentiated and-to some extent-- shaped by presence of National Conference of Catholic Charities (NCCC), founded in 1910. The conference's challenging mission was to modernize Catholic charities-to bring them into American social welfare mainstream-and at same time to maintain their Catholic identity. The annual proceedings of NCCC and its journals, Catholic Charities Review and its successor, Catholic Charities USA, provide national context within which changes in Catholic orphanages, the hallmark of Catholic social provision, can be understood and assessed.2 Preserving Faith, 1851-1900 Orphanages were creation of nineteenth century, when Americans believed that institutions solved many social problems, including crime, mental and physical illness, and dependence. In an age of minimal government, vast majority of social welfare institutions were sponsored by religious organizations and were fervently sectarian, intended by their Protestant, Jewish, and Catholic founders to shelter bodies and preserve faith of their co-religionists. Catholic dioceses founded scores of care-taking institutions, including schools, hospitals, and homes for aged, infants and unwed mothers, and working women. This prolific institution-building was prompted not only by common belief in value of institutions but by pressing spiritual and material needs of impoverished Catholics, by welt-founded fear that they would fall victim to Protestant proselytizing, and by rivalries between dioceses. Perhaps most important, dioceses built institutions because there were men and especially women religious to staff them. European orders such as Ursuline Sisters and Sisters of Good Shepherd were joined by indigenous orders such as Sisters of Charity of Emmitsburg. By 1900 more than 40,000 nuns, most of them American-- born, served Catholic schools, hospitals, and charitable institutions.3 Because women religious received less compensation than men, their institutions became efficient, relatively inexpensive ways of providing charity.4 During nineteenth century, orphanages became most characteristic venue for Catholic charity. According to secretary of NCCC, Monsignor John O'Grady, the care of children away from their own homes ... occupied a larger place in Catholic welfare in United States than any other type of work5 Catholics led way in founding orphanages, establishing sixteen institutions for dependent and neglected children before 1840 and 175 by 1890.6 These orphanages maintained ethnic traditions of German, Irish, Polish, Bohemian, and Italian immigrants. …