Origins
Institutional care for orphaned and abandoned children emerged from religious and charitable impulses. Early Christian communities provided for widows and orphans; Byzantine emperors and church established orphanotropheia (orphan homes) from the 4th century. Medieval European monasteries, hospitals, and charitable foundations cared for foundlings (abandoned infants) and orphans. These arrangements mixed with broader poor relief, as abandoned children were both specially vulnerable and specially eligible for charity. The orphanage as distinct institution—residential facility specifically for child care—crystallized in the early modern period.
The orphanage expanded dramatically in the 18th and 19th centuries. Foundling hospitals (Thomas Coram’s London Foundling Hospital, 1739) received abandoned infants. Orphan asylums housed older children. Industrial schools combined care with work training. Religious orders and charitable societies established institutions across Europe, the Americas, and colonial territories. By 1900, hundreds of thousands of children resided in orphanages worldwide. The institution seemed the obvious solution for children without parents: congregate care in dedicated facilities.
The orphanage’s prominence has declined dramatically. Research demonstrated that institutional care harmed children developmentally, socially, and psychologically. Reform movements promoted family-based alternatives: foster care, adoption, family preservation. The deinstitutionalization movement emptied orphanages in developed countries; children entered foster homes or remained with families receiving support. Yet orphanages persist in many countries, and debates about residential care versus family-based alternatives continue, particularly for children with special needs or in resource-limited settings.
Structure & Function
Orphanages house children in congregate residential facilities, providing basic needs (shelter, food, clothing) and upbringing (education, discipline, socialization). Facilities range from large institutions housing hundreds to smaller group homes. Staff include caregivers, educators, administrators, and sometimes religious personnel. Funding comes from religious organizations, charitable donations, government support, or combinations. The institution substitutes for family, providing what parents would provide—or attempting to do so.
Children entered orphanages through various routes: parental death, abandonment, removal for abuse or neglect, or parental poverty making home care impossible. Many “orphans” had living parents unable or unwilling to care for them. The institution’s population thus mixed true orphans with children whose parents faced crises, creating ambiguity about orphanage purpose: temporary refuge or permanent substitute family. Length of stay varied from brief to entire childhood.
Orphanage conditions varied enormously. Some provided loving care and genuine opportunity; others were sites of abuse, neglect, and exploitation. The institutional form itself—congregate care with high child-to-caregiver ratios—created challenges: limited individual attention, institutional cultures that might normalize harsh treatment, and environments different from family homes. These structural characteristics, not just individual failures, made institutional care problematic as primary child welfare response.
Historical Significance
The orphanage represented society’s organized response to child vulnerability. Before orphanages, parentless children faced abandonment, exploitation, or precarious informal arrangements. The orphanage institutionalized the principle that society should care for children who lacked family care. This principle—collective responsibility for child welfare—persists even as preferred mechanisms have changed from institutional to family-based care.
Orphanages served as sites of social engineering. They removed children from “unfit” parents, placed them in “improving” environments, and trained them for social roles. Colonial orphanages and residential schools separated indigenous children from cultures. Immigration schemes sent orphanage children to colonies as settlers or laborers. Religious orphanages shaped children in particular faiths. The institution was never merely neutral care provision but always involved judgments about how children should be raised and for what purposes.
Contemporary child welfare largely rejects orphanages as appropriate care. International guidelines favor family-based alternatives; child welfare systems in developed countries rarely use congregate care. Yet millions of children remain in institutional settings worldwide, particularly in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and parts of Africa and Asia. Deinstitutionalization efforts continue, but resource constraints and lack of alternative systems make transitions slow. The orphanage remains consequential even as policy consensus moves toward its elimination.
Key Developments
- c. 400: Byzantine orphanotropheia established
- 787: Milan’s foundling wheel for anonymous abandonment
- 1198: Pope Innocent III establishes Santo Spirito Hospital with foundling care
- 1600s: European orphanages multiply
- 1729: First American orphanage (Ursuline Convent, New Orleans)
- 1739: Thomas Coram Foundling Hospital (London)
- 1790s: French Revolution nationalizes orphan care
- 1853: Children’s Aid Society; “orphan trains” to American West
- 1909: White House Conference on Children; foster care promoted
- 1935: Social Security Act; federal role in child welfare
- 1950s: Bowlby attachment research; institutional care questioned
- 1980: Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act
- 1989: UN Convention on Rights of Child; family-based care preferred
- 1990s: Romanian orphanage scandal; deinstitutionalization accelerates
- 2006: UN Guidelines for Alternative Care of Children
- 2010s: Global push for orphanage closure
- 2020s: Continued deinstitutionalization efforts worldwide