ADOPTED...INDENTURED...What's the Difference?

Webster's dictionary defines INDENTURE as "A contract binding one person to work for another." The definition of ADOPTION is "To take into one's family through legal means and raise as one's own child."


When we talk about the Orphan Train Movement of 1854-1929, these two concepts can sometimes become intertwined or even misused. The NY Foundling Home primarily used the Indenture Form when placing their infants and young children with new families throughout the country. While not intending for the Indenture Form to "bind the baby to work for the family", it was indeed a legal document thus giving the Foundling Home the ability to remove a child from their new home should the placement be deemed unsuitable.


This "NOTICE OF ARRIVAL" as it was called, required the receiving husband and wife to sign a "RECEIPT OF CHILD" agreeing to raise them in the Catholic faith, send them to school, and give them all the advantages that would be given a biological child. They were also required to report back to the Sisters of Charity, when requested, with an update of the child's health and well being along with any change of address. They were not, however, legally adopting the child. Receiving parents were given a three year window to decide upon legal adoption however oftentimes this was not enforced.


When we go back and read the definitions again, it is easy to see how these two concepts - indenture and adoption - can be confused when referred to during this time period. The term "indenture" carried with it the negative connotations of slavery which came to an end with the 13th Amendment on Dec. 6, 1965. With the NY Foundling Home opening its doors on October 11, 1869 and sending their first Baby Train to the Midwest in 1876, this negativity was still fresh in people's minds and therefore was not a term that was desirable when speaking of their newly arrived baby. Consequently, the word adoption was sometimes used loosely to describe the new family member's arrival when in fact there was no such legal agreement in terms of "adoption" as we know it today. Today, with adoption, a child is legally a parent's natural child. The primary differences with Indenture is that the child was not able to inherit - a very important right as a family member - and the Foundling Home had the ability to remove the child if it so chose.


The Children's Aid Society, under the direction of Rev. Charles Loring Brace, used neither the Indenture nor Adoption process. Brace believed in both sides - the child and the family -having the option of ending the arrangement. This, he envisioned, would occur under the supervision of the CAS during its yearly visit. Receiving parents were, however, given a card outlining the expectations of caring for a child received from the train, and newspaper announcements spoke clearly of the expectations of caring for a child as a member of one's family....food, clothing, schooling, Sunday school, etc.... but there was no legal Indenture or Adoption form. This sometimes led to the unforeseen circumstance of a child being moved around at will by the receiving family and even the older child taking off on his/her own.


A family receiving a child through the CAS of course had the option of legally adopting the child, once the formal adoption laws were put in place in their state. Kansas, by way of example, did not enact its first adoption laws until 1964 - ten years after the start of the Orphan Train Movement.

SISTER MARY IRENE FITZGIBBON

Around the same time that Reverend Brace was beginning his work on behalf of the homeless children in New York City, another person of faith, Sister Mary Irene Fitzgibbon of the Sisters of Charity, felt God’s calling as well. With beginning capital of just five dollars, Sister Irene sought help from charitable women and raised enough money to rent a small house located at 17 E. 12th Street where, on October 11, 1869 she began preparations for opening what would be called the New York Foundling Hospital. The mission would be to save the thousands of infants and very young children who were being left to perish in alley ways and trash heaps around the city. Appropriately enough, October 11th is the Feast of the Maternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Sister Irene, along with the other Sisters of Charity, intended to take three months to get the home ready to open, but on the very first night an infant was left on the front steps and without ceremony, the Foundling Home was in operation. By January 1, 1870, when the Sisters had originally intended to open their doors, they had 123 babies in residence.

Placing a white cradle in the foyer of the Home, while leaving the front door unlocked, word was sent out that a desperate mother could enter the Home and leave her child in the cradle with no questions asked. All the Sisters asked was that when leaving, the mother ring the bell by the front door so that the Sisters would know that there was a new little one to be gathered up and brought upstairs with the other babies.

Prior to the opening of the Foundling Home, abandoned infants found alive on the streets were taken by police to Blackwell’s Island (a prison and workhouse) where they were cared for by aging prisoners. Few survived infancy.

In the following six years, the NY Foundling home relocated twice to larger buildings to accommodate more children. By 1876 it became apparent that another solution was needed to solve the problem of homeless infants….Mercy Trains, or Baby Trains as they were sometime called, would be the answer….