CHILDREN OF CIRCUMSTANCE PART 3 (1926–1936)

A History Of The First 125 Years (1849-1974) Of The Chicago Child Care Society.

By: Clare L. McCausland

(Note 1: The material that follows consists of long excerpts from the book and copied here with permission of the Chicago Child Care Society.)

(Note 2: The Chicago Child Care Society is the oldest child welfare organization in the state of Illinois. Begun as the Chicago Orphan Asylum in 1849 it changed its name in 1949. Its purpose, to care for children in need, has never changed. The history of this organization also reflects the growth of the city of Chicago, IL from a simple town of 30,000 to a large metropolitan area. Through the history of the Society we can also observe the impact on social service organizations of the Civil War, the Great Chicago Fire, World War I and the Great Depression.)

Previous: Children of Circumstance Part 2

Survey and its Aftermath: Chicago Orphan Asylum Leaves the Institution Miss Ruth Lester, newly elected President of the Board of Managers, was groping for an answer to that question in the spring of1926. Undoubtedly that was why she went to hear Mr. C.C. Carstens speak at The University of Chicago. Mrs. Wiley and Mrs. Haskell Howells went with her. The latter had lived in the East and knew at first hand the rising reputation of the Child Welfare League of America under its first paid executive, Mr. Carstens. He seemed to speak directly to the women’s concerns that day as he urged child-caring agencies to look critically at their programs in the light of changing ideas.

After the lecture, Miss Lester asked Mr. Carstens if he would undertake a survey for Chicago Orphan Asylum. But Miss Sophonisba Breckinridge, head of the Graduate School of Social Service Administration, had another idea. Overhearing the request, she suggested that her department do the survey. The School, founded in 1905, was well established by 1926 and eager to form working relations with Chicago’s social agencies. Her offer was carried back to the Managers and then to the Trustees. Although no one suspected it, that day Chicago Orphan Asylum turned a comer and was headed toward the twentieth century.

While it took somewhat longer to begin the survey than to found the Asylum back in 1849,the Board was still a bit breathless when the examination of seventy-five years of practice and tradition actually began in April. The firm and capable hands of Miss Breckinridge were evident in the three-fold plan. Miss Edna Mohr from the Elizabeth McCormick Memorial Fund would move into the orphanage, weigh and measure the children, study their diet, and their physical activities. Dr.Herman Adler from the Institute for Juvenile Research would test each child’s mental ability. From the school, Miss Breckinridge had selected Miss Ethel Verry to study the social history and the daily routine of the boys and girls.She was admirably equipped for the job. Her experience included casework at Associated Charities in Minneapolis, teaching at the University of Iowa, and research at the Iowa Child Welfare Research Station. At the New England Home for Little Wanderers she had placed children in foster homes. In between, she had earned an M.A. (with a thesis on the psychology of the preschool child), and helped collect material for a book on the psychology of the rural child. In1925 she had come to The University of Chicago as Research Fellow of the Laura Spellman Rockefeller Foundation.

In March the Trustees voted enthusiastically for the survey; at their April meeting the Managers appointed Mrs. Freund, Mrs. Havens, and Miss Lester a liaison committee to aid the survey team.

Uneasiness and concern motivated the request for a survey. Great courage as well was needed for these professionally untrained women and men of the two Boards to accept the principles underlying the study. Miss Breckinridge stated them clearly:

1. The administration of an institution such as the Asylum is professional in character, and members of the staff should be regarded as professional and should be looked to by the Boards of Trustees and Managers for leadership and for the execution of the policies determined upon by the Boards of Trustees and of Managers.

2. The more nearly an institution can reproduce the condition of normal home life, the better for the child’s mental health and development.

3. The chief factor in providing a favorable environment is a high type of personnel, especially inthe case of those persons in immediate charge of the children.

4. The service of the institution should be a developing service responding to changes that take place in the organization of the community philanthropic work and to the increase in knowledge of child psychology and of educational and social processes.

A month later it had become obvious to Miss Breckinridge, as she wrote Miss Lester,…if the asylum is to be placed on a level of modern child-welfare work, there will have to be a change in personnel. We are clear that if a superintendent with a different outlook and preparation and a well equipped social worker could be secured at an early date, further investigation could be the basis of permanent reconstructive work, and such a step could be taken with entire safety at the present time.She also warned against starting, but not finishing, reforms.

By the end of May, Miss Emily Smythe had cheerfully resigned as Superintendent, and for the first time in seventy-five years, Chicago Orphan Asylum had a staff of three professional women. The new Superintendent (at a salary of $3,000.00) was Miss Eva-Lou Longan, former director of The University of Chicago Settlement. Miss Verry became caseworker and investigator at $1,800.00. Miss Dunn, a University of Chicago graduate student with an M.A. in Home Economics, took the job of household manager and dietitian.

These changes in personnel were the first products of the survey. And they had come fast. It is easy to understand why Miss Lester in her Annual Report for 1926 noted with satisfaction that, in the midst of change, old Board committees were carrying on the “regular work” of the Managers. It must have been, at the time, reassuring to report another “Day” established at the orphanage-Hutchinson Day. The income from Mrs. Hutchinson’s memorial gift for her husband was to be used for special musical training, the Day to be celebrated with a musical program by the children.

Although Miss Lester characterized the changes in 1926 as “general,” they were in fact many and in some cases, specific. In many ways, the Board of Managers began implementing the recommendations of the survey before they saw, and approved, a partial report in July, and the full report in October, 1926. These recommendations covered every area of the Asylum’s work, for in most it was found wanting. The McCormick study (of one-third of the group) uncovered serious physical defects, found dental care deficient, diet inadequate, records unsatisfactory, and no proper program of medical examinations with periodic check-ups. It suggested longer hours of sleep in more widely separated beds. It recommended, particularly, dividing the children into smaller units (seven to twelve), since psychologists were convinced that a child needed both a sense of privacy and a feeling of belonging to a small group (a family-like group) for proper development.

The Institute for Juvenile Research gave IQ tests to 151 children. In the group there were two feeble minded children, eighteen borderline defectives, twenty-eight dull, eighty-one average, nineteen superior, and three very superior. The Institute characterized this range of intelligence as normal but pointed out that the mental capacity of each child must be a determinant in planning his program. They recommended that the period of isolation for all entering children be used to observe their mental and emotional as well as their physical health. And, of course, mental tests should be given periodically. For special behavior problems, the advice of a psychiatrist should be sought.

Miss Verry’s part of the survey ranged from the selection of children for care to the procedures at dismissal. And true to professional principles, it scrutinized Chicago OrphanAsylum’s relationship with other social agencies and its role in community planning.

As the survey advanced,a basic question arose which Trustees and Managers had to answer: What was to be their institution’s particular niche in Chicago’s philanthropic services? Deciding that was no longer easy in the city’s complex social structure, but on the answer hung any number of other decisions: how many children should be accepted; what ages? What kind of program would be needed? Since the Application Committee had always been, and would continue to be, at the center of these decisions, the survey had a specific recommendation for it. The social worker should investigate each case and present it, with a recommendation, to the Committee. Since admission would be based, not on personality and appearance,but on facts and principles, the applicant need not come before the Committee in person. This was a far-reaching recommendation, striking at the heart of seventy-five years of managing Chicago Orphan Asylum.

For the rejected child, referral to an appropriate agency for study or placement was recommended. For the family of the admitted child, there must be constructive social work to strengthen the home for the return of the child as soon as possible. And when a child was returned, there must be a plan for after-care during the period of readjustment.

The Asylum received a low mark in community planning. Full cooperation was urged, specifically with the Council of Social Agencies, the Social Service Exchange, the Joint Service Bureau, and the State and National Conferences of Social Work?.

Some of the recommendations sounded easy; their full implementation took many years. But in 1926 the work began, largely because a creative staff pointed the way. The Board of Managers reaffirmed its old upper age limits — twelve years for girls, ten for boys. After a brief consideration of Chicago’s facilities for baby care, it decided not to admit any child under one. And it set 170 as a”working” maximum of children it would accept, although there was a general feeling that the number should probably be smaller.

There was no quick,easy, and inexpensive way to break up the large group of children into small units, but the Board initiated discussion of that recommendation. Miss Verry suggested as an experiment that they board a few children in private homes under the supervision of a social worker. They decided to ask the Trustees to authorize a modest $300.00 for the experiment.

The Board also requested the Medical Committee to begin study of the recommendations within its purview.Obviously the whole health program needed to be enlarged and updated. It must be positive and preventive, for the well child as well as the sick one. That was a mammoth job involving minutiae such as seeing that every child had a quart of milk per day, real butter instead of a substitute, more eggs, more fresh fruit, and vegetables, more cod liver oil, etc., as well as the larger issues of arranging for periodic weighing and measuring, and keeping adequate records. After basic decisions were made, diet matters were left to the trained Miss Dunn. Her right hand was Miss Petra Broberg, the resident nurse. She was a real find and was to endear herself to generations of the Asylum’s children.

The Medical Committee also decided it had to offer a larger salary, possibly $150.00 per month, to any doctor undertaking the expanded program. They were, possibly, helped to this decision by the tart comment of a retiring doctor, “My…suggestion,” he wrote in his letter of resignation, “is that you pay your next doctor an amount he will not be ashamed to admit he is receiving. There was a time when I felt that I was doing a certain portion of the work for charity, but the engineer or the cook does not feel that way, so why should a professional man?”

The Executive Committee,in the meantime, under Miss Lester’s enthusiastic leadership was considering other changes it could make immediately. Before 1926 had ended the Committee sent six requests to the Trustees: (1) purchase a car for $350.00-$400.00 to aid the social worker in her city-wide visits; (2) put a figure in the 1927 budget (possibly $1,200.00) to enlarge the boarding home experiment; (3) authorize extending the dining room and purchasing smaller tables, and chairs to establish a homelike atmosphere there; (4) authorize support of the Council of Social Agencies, the Joint Service Bureau and the Child Welfare League of America; and (5) give the Managers some idea how far they might increase their expenditures in 1927. The Trustees approved “1,” “3,” and”4.” They decided prudently to delay decision on “2” until after the annual meeting with its year-end financial accounting. As for”5,” the Trustees passed that item back to the Managers with the suggestion that they prepare a budget and submit it for approval.

No matter how much the institution wanted to reorganize, everyone was conscious of the cost of change. That, and perhaps the sight of the overworked Miss Verry, led Edith Abbott to suggest, in November, an economical way of getting another social worker. The School could assign a graduate student to assist Miss Verry for a few months. Half of the student’s salary would be paid from special funds; the cost to the institution would be not more than $300.00. The student would have a valuable experience, Miss Verry would have help, and the School itself would be grateful for a chance to share in the exciting changes at Chicago Orphan Asylum. The Board accepted.

November also brought a report from the Purchasing Consultant of the Council of Social Agencies. As the women had promised, they had kept vouchers of household purchases for1926 and had sent them to the Council for analysis. On the whole, the consultant felt their prices compared favorably with those of comparable institutions but he had a few warnings. The household staff made too many retail purchases for drugs, groceries, hardware, and the like. He also advised using plain paper napkins at 33c to 45c per thousand instead of crepe paper ones at 85c — napkins had always loomed large in the ladies’ planning. The price of brushes (floor, scrub, and “other”) seemed unduly high; a little “judicious trading could materially reduce the cost of butter and eggs; and they should keep a careful eye on janitors’ and painters’ supplies.The women felt the report “not too bad” in spite of the warnings.

An astonishing number of changes were reported by the staff at year’s end. One of Miss Verry’s first tasks as caseworker was to get the thirty-six overage boys and girls out of the orphanage. Only three remained at the end of the year. Careful study, case by case, had moved the others to Glenwood, Park Ridge, relatives, or to the jurisdiction of the Juvenile Court. In this process, the Managers, who had so often in the past struggled with the problems of these children, saw the fruits of agency cooperation. For at the request of the institution, the Council of Social Agencies brought together Miss Breckinridge, and representatives from Glenwood, Illinois Children’s Home and Aid, Addison Manual Training School, and the Service Council of the Juvenile Court to consider with Miss Verry a policy for the care and treatment of the older dependent child. The significance of the conference was not lost on the Managers.

Miss Verry’s registration of all the Asylum’s families with the Social Service Exchange (only forty-eight of ninety had been registered earlier) also demonstrated her belief in agency cooperation. And so did her use of the Child Welfare League’s members to investigate situations outside Chicago and Illinois, and of its standard form for social history and medical records.

In fact, Miss Verry’s every move reflected the most highly regarded theories and best practices of social work in the twenties. “Individualize” was the watchword. Regard each child as a separate, whole human being, and plan for him according to his personality and needs. The home from which he came was never lost sight of in this approach. Far from desiring that a child be surrendered (as in the very early days) so that planning might be unhampered by a”bad” background, the orphanage now encouraged contact with parents and relatives. Gone was the attitude that visiting days merely”upset” the children; if they did, the social worker was expected to do something about it.

If the child had to be cared for in an institution then he must also be regarded as an individual there. Dr. Rudolph Reeder, Superintendent of the New York Orphanage,Hastings-on-the-Hudson, was a great authority of the day on children in institutions. In his book, How Two Hundred Children Live and Learn (1910)he placed in sharp contrast institutionalism and individuality:Institutionalism…is opposed to this recognition of the child’s individuality. It is rote, routine and dead-levelism. It is law, coercion and suppression. It is praying by rote, singing by rote, repeating portions of the Bible by rote. It is walking in silent rows, eating in silent rows, sleeping in silent rows. It is religion without personality, discipline without individuality, and play without initiative.

At one time Miss Breckinridge had suggested to Miss Lester that Dr. Reeder might be willing to look over the completed survey and meet with Trustees and Managers to discuss it.

Variant expressions of this theme were heard at conferences of social workers and appeared in the writings of psychologists and research workers. It was prominent too among educators, for these were the days of John Dewey and Francis Parker.

In hindsight, perhaps Miss Verry’s most interesting task in those critical first months, was her reeducation of the Board of Managers. Her springboard was the Application Committee. Every Board member, in turn, sat on that Committee so that all experienced its quiet demotion from autonomy. True, it still voted on admissions and dismissals, but not on the basis of its own investigations and personal impressions, but rather on the recommendations of a social worker. That the Committee remained interested and alive is a tribute both to the flexibility of the Board and the skilled leadership of Miss Verry. She knew the importance of Board support in the days ahead and she was able to reeducate it to accept new methods. Both shared the common goal of the best possible care for the children.

In the next four years Chicago Orphan Asylum slowly but surely became a modern institution. It accepted wholeheartedly, at least the Managers did, the principles of sound social work. It experimented with various types of care: cottages (for ten to sixteen children), boarding homes, and a congregate unit. It improved its health care (physical and mental) and its recreation program. It brought its records in line with approved practices. And always it sought to identify its particular piece in the patchwork of the city’s services for dependent children.

It was a large job, lightened by small triumphs along the way. A physician was found early in 1927 willing to head up the new physical program. Height and weight records soon told a satisfactory story of a scientifically planned diet. Advice from the Psychology Department of The University of Chicago and the Institute for Juvenile Research helped turn a few children with serious behaviour problems into normal children with normal behavior problems. The Chicago Normal School of Physical Education planned and supervised corrective gymnastics. In the afternoon trained recreation leaders directed playground activities into creative channels. A small experiment of school for two to four-year-olds blossomed into a real nursery school, unique in Chicago’s institutions. The growing nursery school movement in the city watched the group with interest. Board members who knew of the orphanage’s pioneer efforts in establishing a kindergarten back in 1882 must have a felt a kinship with their predecessors.

Reeducation of the Board of Managers was a week-to-week happening. In turn the women on the Application Committee saw casework principles at work and even learned their language. The Medical Committee was constantly exposed to new concepts in childcare, particularly in mental health. In the process of what Superintendent Longan called “humanizing” the institution, the House Committee learned about adjusting furnishings to the psychological as well as the physical needs of the child. And everybody was kept up-to-date at monthly Board meetings on the small steps of change.

There were a few resignations from the Board in those years, none attributable to dislike of the new Chicago Orphan Asylum. Many long- standing members died: Mrs. Caryl Young who had served fifty-nine years, Mrs. Elliott Phelps, thirty-four, and Mrs.Charles Stevens, eighteen. The new members (Mrs. Wilbur Post, Mrs. Dallas Phemister, Mrs. John Merrill, Mrs. Henry Voegeli, and Mrs. Raymond Ashcraft) came in to a changing institution; they had nothing to unlearn. It was a viable Board and under the leadership of Miss Lester and Mrs. Howells (Presidents during the vital years 1926-1934) it moved steadily along implementing the recommendations of the survey.

The Trustees, however, were not so fortunate. They approved unanimously the idea of a survey, and accepted its recommendations. But for them there was no daily reiteration to reinforce the value of the changes nor to teach them the new language of the social workers. “What is a ‘small home'” one Trustee asked, “and how does it differ from a ‘boarding home’?” A year later another Trustee reminded Miss Lester to add definitions of terms to recommendations about to be sent to the mens Board. “They won’t understand what you are talking about,” he wrote.

Efforts were made to keep them abreast of the work, particularly after Miss Verry became Superintendent in 1928. When Miss Longan resigned to continue study in her field, Miss Verry stepped into her place with the enthusiastic support of Managers and Trustees. She was committed to the program; she had, indeed,initiated many of the changes. Soon after she became Superintendent she prompted the assigning of a month for each Trustee in turn to visit the institution, see the changes and learn at first hand of its new procedures and its problems. It seemed a workable plan, for the Board of Trustees was small (thirteen to fifteen) and its membership changed little between 1925 and 1931. Mr. Bernard Sunny joined the Board in 1927, Mr.Frederick Ingalls and Mr. Charles F. Grey II, in 1930. The officers remained the same except for the addition in 1930 of Mr. Harve Page of the Northern Trust who acted as Assistant Treasurer (and eventually Assistant Secretary as well) although he was not a Trustee. It was neither a large nor a shifting group to reeducate. But, unfortunately, many of the busy men failed to take advantage of their opportunity to visit, and other contacts were limited. A Special Committee, appointed in 1928 to make long-range plans for Chicago Orphan Asylum, did, however, bring three Trustees into closer touch with the work. Trustees Glessner, Harris, and Ashcraft joined Mrs. Shaw, Mrs. Phemister,and Mrs. Havens on this important committee. Miss Lester served as chairman;Miss Verry raised questions and acted as a resource.

The Trustees needed no education in worrying about how they were going to pay for reorganization. Like the Managers they were relieved when 1926 ended with expenses up only $242.00 over 1925. But when recommendations for experiments and changes began to arrive fairly steadily for their authorization, they did not jump to approve without a careful look at costs. At the time of the survey, a small separate study of the institution’s resources had been made by Arthur Young, focussed chiefly on the amount of unrestricted funds. In 1927, the Trustees authorized another study to determine the nature of all the monies they managed. Although it was difficult to run down the terms of many early bequests, and to decide where to”put” special day funds, bed funds, and the like, the study ended with the recommendations that three funds be created: general endowment, restricted endowment, and trust fund accounts. The remaining unrestricted gifts should be added to the capital account. Acting on this advice swelled the capital account to $743,779.25 in 1927, subject only to the “discretionary action” of the Board of Trustees. The Managers were to eye this account enviously in the years ahead; the Trustees guarded it carefully. In the late twenties, it must be remembered, the clouds of the great depression of the thirties were gathering ominously on the horizon.

It was not long before the Special Committee sent two requests to Managers and Trustees. In May, 1928, it asked authorization (1) to place twenty children in boarding homes under the supervision of a skilled caseworker, and (2) to rent a cottage in an outlying suburb to house ten girls and a cottage mother. Both Boards quickly approved the requests; the Managers appointed subcommittees of their members to guide each project. But launching the experiments was agonizingly slow.

The Boarding Home Project met fewer obstacles; however finding suitable homes and then fitting the child, psychologically, to the home was bound to take time. It was January,1929, before children began to be placed. By August, twenty, as requested, were in boarding homes; and by the end of the year, with the Trustees’ approval,thirty-two were so placed. The total cost was $7,326.00, less than had been anticipated. A Department of Boarding Care was then listed as a division of Chicago Orphan Asylum.

Finding a suitable cottage to launch the second project was very difficult. The subcommittee searched for months. They wanted a small rental house in a modest but respectable neighborhood. Sometimes the rent was too high; sometimes neighbors objected (with petitions); and sometimes possible houses were too far from schools, churches, and recreation. At one point the Special Committee considered abandoning the whole idea and concentrating on developing more boarding homes. President Swift and the Trustees on the Special Committee stayed close to this project. They were worried about the size of the unit (six or sixteen), and the cost. Could it be financed by the institution’s money alone,or should they seek county funds? Miss Verry had raised the latter possibility.In the end, President Swift and Mr. Harris generously offered to give $10,000 apiece to carry both projects for a year. Miss Verry was sure costs could be kept within those limits.

Finally in May, 1929, a possible house was found in Austin. It was a “shabby old place,”renting for $85.00 per month, but the neighborhood was “right” and the women were used to making shabby rooms attractive. The Trustees signed the lease; necessary repairs were made; and the subcommittee, with $500.00 from”generous friends” and their own labor, equipped and decorated Pine Cottage. Ten girls moved in August 1, 1929.

The Special Committee may have started two experiments, but it was not supposed to rest. There were important unanswered questions on its agenda. The basic one was, as usual since1926, what should the institution’s future work be? Perhaps cottages and boarding homes if the results of the projects pointed that way. The number of children at 5120 South Park had fallen slightly in 1929 from 156 to 132 but it was still the main vehicle for care. It was there that the bulk of committee work was centered. There the women went about their familiar tasks: watching the health program, refurbishing the house on a shoestring, ordering supplies,sending children to summer camp, planning special day celebrations, etc. It had seemed entirely appropriate in 1927 for Miss Mary Riddle to honor her mother, a former Board member, by giving the orphanage a bronze statue for the front hall, and quite in keeping with the old intimate days that the sculptress should be Sylvia Shaw Judson, daughter of Mrs. Howard Shaw, another Board member.

But even then the question had been raised whether 5120 South Park Avenue would always be”home.” In 1929 the Special Committee was faced with decisions that might well include leaving the old orphanage. Should the congregate care unit be continued, or should all the children be placed in cottages and boarding homes? If the Boards eventually (decided) on an all-cottage plan should they build in the city or in the country? Or should the institution retain a small receiving unit where children might be observed before placement? These were some of the questions Miss Verry asked the Special Committee in 1929. Mrs. Howells, who became President of the Board of Managers that year called Miss Verry the”inspiration and “instigator of the orphanage.

There was a special urgency to the question of moving, quite apart from program. The orphanage neighborhood had been changing for several years: many low-income families, a large proportion black, overcrowded housing and schools. The small children had suffered on the way to and from school. To avoid the situation, the orphanage had, in 1927, reestablished first and second grades in Blackstone with teachers provided by the Board of Education. The thirty-seven older boys and girls who still attended Burke were, however, constantly at war with neighborhood gangs. They hated school and many began to fail. The Managers began to wonder whether it were safe for children and staff even to live at 5120, particularly after three break-ins in 1929. They added window guards, outside lights, and a barbed-wire fence for protection; finally they hired a special policeman to patrol the grounds at night. It was impossible to use neighborhood parks and recreation centers. At times the staff wondered if it were safe even to let the all-white group of children play in their own yard. These circumstances had to be weighed as the Special Committee considered the future.

As the months passed, the success of the boarding home and cottage experiments suggested a possible solution. Miss Verry commented on it in a report written late in 1929.

The boarding home and the cottage departments suggest a future development for the Orphanage that might combine these two types of work and enable us to leave our present location. We could establish a small administration building, perhaps near The University of Chicago where the resources of that community would be accessible. There we could provide office room for the staff and a center for our work, receive our children, study them, give them medical attention, and determine on the type of care best suited to their needs. We ought to be able to operate such a home for thirty or thirty-five children and pay for the necessary executive staff for $35,000.00 a year. Then we could have a boarding home department which would provide for at least sixty children. From our experience we can say with certainty that this could be accomplished at a cost of $30,000.00 a year. Four cottages for twelve children each might be established in various parts of the city, carrying the names which we now have on our central buildings, Fuller, Ryerson, Young, for example. Judging from the experience of others, these could certainly be run at an expense of $8,000.00 a year each or $32,000.00 for four cottages. Adding these totals we should have Staff and Central Building (caring for 35 children) $35,000.00 Four cottages (caring for 48 children) $32,000.00 Boarding Home Department(caring for 60 children) $30,000.00 This comes well within our annual budget and I believe the estimates are large enough so that we would be apt to spend less rather than more on the projects suggested. Such a plan seems possible, and while it would involve a great deal of work and planning,would a most certainly result in better service for the children for whom we now provide institutional care.In these projections there was not one reference to the shaky national economy, yet before the year was out the whole economic structure had collapsed. The country was in a state of shock by October, 1929; recovery was nowhere in sight.

The depression, in fact, did not catch up with the orphanage for almost a year. The Board of Managers went quietly ahead in 1930 as though money would always be there when needed. Convinced of the success of Pine Cottage in promoting a healthy, happy life for the ten little girls who called it home they opened two more cottages — Lorel for boys and girls and Parkside for boys. All were in Austin. The cottage experiment cared for thirty-six children by December, 1930.

An even larger number were in boarding homes — forty-eight by the end of 1930 with thirty-seven others ready to go when additional homes could be found. The cost was gratifyingly low, $400.00 per month, exclusive of administrative costs. It had taken 285 investigations to turn up forty-four suitable homes, but the growing number of foster mothers had begun to attract others. Some were even willing to take on rather difficult children.

Only eighty-nine children were housed at 5120 South Park Avenue in December 1930; in another year only thirteen would be there. To get them out of the institution was the goal, but as they waited for the doors to open, life was certainly not as usual in the orphanage. While essentially the children received congregate care,staff, true to their training, tried to offset institutionalism in many ways. Ten carefully selected matrons, under a supervisor, lived in. To them a child could look for a personal relationship based on understanding and affection. While the whole group still ate in one large dining room, they no longer marched in silently, hands behind their backs. As they sat at small tables, dressed in clothes of every color, they looked, almost, like groups of non-institutional children.

Other shifts in procedure contributed to this look and also fostered independence. When the Board of Education could no longer provide house teachers for the dwindling number, all the children were once again sent to public school, the Dewey School this time, a bit removed from the tension of Burke. They might have been chaperoned in groups the greater distance, but instead the older ones were given carfare and allowed to go on their own. No longer were they marched to one Sunday School; they could choose from four, although attendance Was still required. Their recreation was, as earlier, rich and varied; so much so that Miss Verry felt, “care must be taken to guard against over stimulation rather than drabness in the children’s lives.” She encouraged smaller treats: spending their pennies at a candy store, or seeing an occasional movie with a few friends.

All the children came to the orphanage for routine medical care. They were on the whole a healthy lot.Since many now lived in cottages and boarding homes, the old fear of epidemics sweeping through the entire group was finally laid to rest. Good food, well planned,added to physical well-being. For 12c per meal per child, the boys and girls had ample meat, fresh vegetables and fruit, butter, milk, and even treats of ice cream, birthday cakes, and candy. One small boy who liked milk and arithmetic figured he had drunk 2,010 cups of milk in one year. Emphasis on outdoor play as part of the regime led to bare feet and sun suits in summer. To keep up the program in winter, the staff designed and then made one-piece zipper suits for the little children out of warm blanket material.

In 1929 Miss Ruth Nice came to the orphanage as caseworker; by 1930 the women said she was “the best caseworker in the city,” “indispensable!” When the Board gave Miss Verry a well-earned six months’ leave in late 1930, Miss Nice was left in charge. She had a gift for working in harmony with Board and staff. There are dozens of anecdotes testifying as well to her special way with the children. Years after one rather difficult girl had left the orphanage Miss Nice helped make her wedding dress. All during World War II she wrote to a lonely boy whose family was essentially, Miss Nice. A modern social worker describes her, warmly, as an “old time” caseworker, compassionate and committed.

During her leave, Miss Verry did not put Chicago Orphan Asylum completely out of her mind.In August she wrote a long letter to Miss Lester from Germany setting down what she called “Some Problems of the Chicago Orphan Asylum with Suggestions toward Their Solution.” She considered in a frank informal manner everything from intake (the Board used this term freely by this time) to the use of Board committees under a three-fold organization: (1) a central building with a small receiving unit, medical services, and offices; (2) cottages; and (3) boarding homes. She was putting her own ideas in order, and, at the same time, directing Board thinking toward specific decisions. She had suggested the plan a year earlier and apparently felt the time was ripe for action.

In her annual report at the end of 1930 (the first to be published with that of the President of the Board of Managers) Miss Verry vigorously restated the elements of the plan and the necessity for change. The report starts with a bang.”The Chicago Orphan Asylum has outgrown its name…No child needs simply an asylum…The ideas which have broken the shell of the old asylum will most certainly continue to bring new developments.” One of those was certainly,for Miss Verry, leaving 5120 South Park Avenue. President Howell’s report also points to this expectation. She notes that maintenance of the buildings had been pared to the bone in anticipation of moving. And the Board found the children restless; glowing reports of life in the cottages and in boarding homes led them to ask frequently, “When am I going away7” The Managers were ready for the move.

How much will it cost? The question was asked by Managers and Trustees alike, more anxiously by the latter. Worried in a time of falling income from investments, reduced rents on the Michigan and Wabash Avenue dwellings, and dwindling contributions, the Trustees hired Business Research Corporation to study the orphanage “with the purpose in view of bringing about a reduction in expense of operation….” They reported in June, 1931, to Mr. Alfred Hamill, the new President, after Mr. Swift’s death in May. Although they were not expected to criticize program, they expressed approval of the suggested changes and urged that the children in the orphanage be transferred to boarding homes or cottages as rapidly as possible. Caring for the small number in the central building was very expensive. Miss Verry was already planning to reduce staff there, but the study listed an additional number of cooks, matrons, laundresses, and seamtresses they thought could be dismissed as well. On the other hand they advised adding two placement workers and one caseworker to speed up the transfer of children out of the orphanage. It was a bad time to sell property,but the Trustees were urged to make getting the expensive buildings off their hands a top priority. How much could be saved if these recommendations were carried out was difficult to estimate; their best guess was $8,400.00 if the receiving unit housed no more than forty children, $19,800.00 if cottage children as well were moved to boarding homes (a less expensive operation).

There is no record that the report ever reached the Board of Managers as a whole, but a copy was sent to Mrs. Howells. She wrote Mr. Hamill in July that she and Miss Verry felt the study had been “thoughtfully and wisely done.” The die was cast.

In the middle of the depression, Chicago Orphan Asylum moved again, to rented quarters at 4911 Lake Park Avenue. On November 21, 1931, their activities filled every floor of the three-story apartment building. The first floor housed offices; the second, asmall receiving unit with ten beds; the third, medical facilities, including a small hospital.

The building was old and, once again, the women had to use all their decorating skills to make it habitable. What to do with all the trappings of the institution taxed the ingenuity of the whole Board. They took some equipment with them, of course, and some went to the cottages. They gave furniture to foster mothers, the Hyde Park Neighborhood Club, Sarah Hackett Stevenson Memorial, and a little to departing household staff like old Jennie Moore who had been a live-in housemaid for thirty-six years. They stored the memorabilia of many years (portraits, pictures, statues, bed plates, etc.) pending less hurried decisions.

The human element of the change, dismissal of house staff, was discussed in many Board meetings. Miss Verry and Mrs. Howells worked on the amount of severance pay for those who had worked for the orphanage for years. Jennie, old and somewhat childish, was a real problem. In the end they voted a trial pension of $30.00per month for her for one year. Before the year was over she had died, unable to adjust to life “outside.” The minutes record that “mind and heart” had given out.”

It was difficult to compress into the new quarters, but all agreed they were wise to rent, not buy or build until they knew just what they needed.”Flexibility” was the word used over and over in those years to describe their program and the quarters from which they directed it.

Although rent was now a budget item, other expenses fell considerably after the move. Staff was reduced from fifty-four to twenty-nine (seven of them were part-time). Most of the reduction was in matrons and household help; the administration staff still consisted of Miss Verry, Miss Dunn, and Miss Broberg; the social service staff included Miss Nice as caseworker and four placement workers (an increase of three in three years). One hundred and sixty-six children were under care at the end of 1931: thirty-eight in cottages, in boarding homes, thirteen in the receiving unit, two in hospitals and special schools. Chicago Orphan Asylum was no longer an institution offering congregate care, although it was still searching for its precise role in the community. The year ended with a deficit of $5,615.39, paid for out of the capital fund.

Financial pressure was unremitting in the next three years. Miss Verry, the Managers, and the staff worked together to keep expenses low and standards high.”Perhaps the most honest thing that can be said about 1933,” wrote Miss Lester, serving her second term as President, “is that with the most concentrated and consecrated devotion we have pulled through the year.”Income from parents, which had been $13,654.00 in 1928, had fallen to $3,000.00 in 1933; contributions in the same period from $8,000.00 (from 400 persons) to $2,324.00 (from 103). Miss Verry, Miss Lester observed, had done everything she could: “She has directed the staff, correlated their work, reduced their salaries, and kept them as loyal as ever!”

Every committee went in for penny pinching. The Case Committee (the old Applications Committee) studied the cost of care in the cottages and the boarding homes. The cost in the latter was far cheaper: $1.42 as compared with $2.21-$2.84 in the cottages. Carefully, case by case, the Committee then reviewed the situation of the girls in Pine (the most expensive) and concluded they would fare as well in boarding homes. Pine, then, was closed; Lorel followed in 1934; Parkside survived until 1936. These were difficult decisions; some Board members had close ties with the cottages; they had eaten suppers cooked by the Lorel girls,or listened to the boys of Parkside sing “We are the Men of the Coming Generation.” But economic reality had to be faced and the staff assured them the children would be well cared for in foster homes.

The House Committee (the old Improvement Committee) kept 4911 Lake Park “patched to a respectable tidiness” but postponed improvements. Clothing was a problem. In one year the women begged 402 articles of clothing from Board members and friends: 109 dresses, nineteen coats, seven pairs of trousers, underwear, raincoats,bathrobes, etc. Mrs. Albert Hopkins made a special plea for an overcoat to fit a 6’5″ tall boy.

Free entertainments were welcomed; everything else was scrutinized carefully. They welcomed the Junior League’s offer of free dancing lessons for cottage boys and girls, and that of an opera singer (who had spent her youth in an orphanage) for free lessons for one talented girl. After calculating that the institution spent 5c per child per day on shoes and shoe repair, they decided it was foolish to give everyone a new pair of shoes on Shoe Day regardless of need. Instead they sent each child a bright red card, shaped like a pair of shoes, on Mr. Talcott’s birthday. The card could be turned in for a new pair of shoes when needed. Mrs.Shaw opened her home for the Talcott Day party that year. For Christmas, the women and staff dressed dolls and made other gifts.

There were, happily, moments of laughter in the midst of the unending talk of economy. The Boardtook a fifteen-minute break in the middle of one meeting to consume a plateful of Miss Dunn’s celebrated hot fudge. At another, Miss Lester-solemnly read a letter from an unknown gentleman downstate “with a fervent offer of marriage to Miss Verry.” No action was taken, the Recording Secretary noted!

However, all the economy, and the new program, paid off handsomely. In 1928, the last year of full congregate care, the institution had served 145 children on a budget of $93,882.81; in 1933 their daily average was 202 children with a budget of only $92,454.17. Unfortunately income had fallen so drastically in 1933, over $15,000 less than in 1932, that the Asylum ran a deficit of $7,351.65.

Preoccupation with the moment did not, moreover, stop planning for the future. The Special Committee was dissolved after the move in 1931; a Policy Committee was appointed in 1933 to consider the next developments. Only women were on the new committee: Mrs.Ernest Freund, (Chairman), Mrs. Rollin Chamberlin, Mrs. Hasell Howells, Mrs.Alexander Greene, and Mrs. John H. Merrell. Mrs. Wiley joined the committee later; Miss Lester became the Chairman in 1935. The question of congregate care was, for the time being at least, settled, but it was now time to evaluate foster homes and cottage care. And there was still the old question of limiting services to a particular kind of child. Should it be the child with severe emotional problems? Few agencies were willing to accept them. What about unmarried mothers and their babies? Or children who needed convalescent care?

The Policy Committee approached its task with the knowledge and skill of women in the mainstream of child care. They had come a long way from 1924 when “widening their scope” had meant joining the Council of Social Agencies and the Joint Service Bureau. Through Miss Verry and the social service staff they knew what was happening in child care in Chicago. The workers were in constant demand toserve on committees of the Council of Social Agencies. They attended the annual National Conferences of Social Work; six went to Detroit, at their own expense,in 1932. From Miss Verry they learned of national movements. She was sought in Washington, Pittsburgh, and New York to set standards, establish policies, and survey the field for unmet needs. In 1930, ‘She and Miss Lester attended the White House Conference. After that exposure, Miss Lester was asked to serve on the National Women’s Committee on Welfare and Relief Mobilization, and on the committee to arrange the Social Welfare Exhibit at the Century of Progress in1933.

From this rich knowledge of the intricacies of child care, the Policy Committee looked at Chicago Orphan Asylum of 1933. It examined the caseload, from the child with a severe behavior problem to the one who was lost, or abandoned, at the nearby World’s Fair. Then it looked at city conditions, visiting agencies with whom the institution cooperated or who might have suggestions for future work. It met with representatives of the Juvenile Court and talked with staff of the Council of Social Agencies. At one point, it visited the Michigan Children’s Aid Society of Detroit, an outstanding child-care society.

For a time, it seemed that the Policy Committee raised more questions than it answered. But its conviction deepened that Chicago needed an agency flexible enough to meet the ever-changing needs of the dependent child, whether they be those of the seriously disturbed child, the illegitimate, the black, the convalescent, or one temporarily deprived of family care. It felt the agency had an obligation in those depression years to care for 200-250 children each year.

With the approval of the Board of Managers the Policy Committee recommended to the Trustees that the receiving unit be closed and that a few foster homes be found specifically to carry on its function. This change would reduce costs and be equally satisfactory. It also urged that the agency should not decrease service but should instead appoint a Publicity Committee (of three Trustees and three Managers) to put the work and the needs before the general public.Contributions must be increased; service must not decrease. The Board knew it was asking a lot in a depression, but their President reminded the Trustees, “I doubt if the cholera epidemic which made the beginning of this institution necessary, made raising money easy.”

Determination not to reduce service led to Mrs. Wiley’s suggestion in November, 1933, that the Trustees apply to the Community Fund for “funds in proportion to our needs.” Other Managers asked if capital account money could be used to take care of a deficit.

The Trustees, meanwhile, were struggling to keep expenses in line with income. The whole Board of Trustees met only once a year, just before the joint annual meeting. The Finance Committee (five to six members) met quarterly, reviewed investments,and compared income and expense. At the January meeting the President of the Board of Managers with Miss Verry presented the proposed budget for the year. During the depression years the ladies were often called back at midyear to see how their estimate of expenses was holding up. The Trustees warned them repeatedly not to go over budget; the women stressed the pressure from the city for their work, pressures of which the Trustees were often unaware.

Both Boards made an all-out effort to raise money. Under Mrs. Orton Camp, a new Contributions Committee tried to increase the number of contributors. They succeeded by 35per cent in 1935, more in later years. Some new members of the Board were put to work on that committee: Mrs. Ernst Puttkammer, Mrs. Charles Shedd, and Mrs.Neil B. Dawes. The publicity attendant on their efforts was new to Chicago Orphan Asylum: two articles in the Sunday Tribune, a letter in Herma Clark’s “When Chicago Was Young,” and even a radio broadcast describing the agency’s work during a fund drive. Perhaps this publicity helped the Trustees too as they wrote letters of appeal to friends and tried to strengthen the old successful method of having Chicago Orphan Asylum remembered in wills and trusts.

In 1934 a new development had to be faced. Cook County set up a Children’s and Minor’s Service Division of Public Welfare. Since more public money was available, some felt the agency should seek public subsidy. Others thought accepting tax money could lead to a loss of identity and of the special quality of their service. It might even lead to the question, “Is there a place for theprivate agency?” To that the Board answered, “Yes,” but it knew its program must fit into community needs. In spite of the Policy Committee’s study, the Board felt inadequate to pinpoint the agency’s place. Miss Lester expressed this feeling when she wrote in her last annual report (1934), “A thorough, open minded consideration of the city situation would seem to be necessary before any judgment be made or suggestion offered.”

In 1935 the depression began to wear itself out. Income was higher, and the Managers felt they could talk about something other than retrenchment. For two years they had accepted no new children, now they increased the group to 232 (fourteen more than in 1934). They also enlarged the staff to five full-time and two part-time social workers. One of the latter was Miss Charlotte Towle, Professor at the University of Chicago, who would act as a consultant in psychiatric social work.

The Board also initiated action in new areas. It began to discuss drawing up personnel practices for staff, and Mrs. Wiley pulled together a pamphlet describing the function of Board members. With the passing of the orphanage, was there a place for Board members other than in money raising? Mrs. Otto Schmidt, the new President, appointed Mrs. Rollin Chamberlin a delegate to an Institute for Board Members, led by a specialist from New York to study this problem.

Toward the end of 1935 Miss Verry heard that the Council of Social Agencies had employed Mabel Devine, from the ((U.S. Children’s Bureau)), to study a number of Chicago agencies as an aid to planning children’s services. She asked, with the Manager’s approval, that Chicago Orphan Asylum be included. And, remembering 1926, the Board also requested the Elizabeth McCormick Memorial Fund to study their foster homes, medical care, and the care at Parkside.

So they ended the decade of change as they had begun it, with a survey. Miss Verry still posed two questions to measure the value of a social agency: (1) How does it serve its children? and (2) How does it serve the community? She insisted that Boards and staff must never stop asking these questions.