City Orphan Asylum
89 Lafayette Street (building no longer standing)

Organized in 1866 by the Sisters of Notre Dame, the Orphan Asylum was conducted by four nuns to shelter orphaned boys and girls of any denomination. At the time, many charitable organizations would only care for American-born, Protestant children. Local writer Lucy H. Cleveland (see S49) described the facility, stating that “about 100 children are cared for here and they attend school in the building. As a rule, they are not kept after they are 12 years old, when the boys… are sent to some institution in charge of ‘The Brothers,’ and the girls suitably placed and taught till old enough to earn a livelihood.”¹⁰² In 1888, when the orphanage was located at 89 Lafayette Street, twelve nuns looked after the children. By 1908, the facility had moved further down Lafayette Street and expanded its services to include “a due amount of education in the common branches of learning.”¹⁰³

Earlier, in 1805, the Salem Female Charitable Society (see S27) had purchased a home to house orphaned children and an overseeing governess. As Carol S. Lasser wrote in A “Pleasingly Oppressive” Burden, in the “‘society of societies,’ [of the time] women’s groups distinguished themselves by their pervasive interest in charitable works… [and, in Salem,] directed most of their efforts toward a program of aid for ‘little gems’ who needed their help.”¹⁰⁴ They took in girls from ages three to ten whose parents could not support them or who were orphaned, and they were taught to read, write, and perform a wide range of domestic skills before they were placed in private homes as domestic help. By 1837, the society had helped eighty-two girls but in 1838, as indentured domestic help was now considered outmoded, they placed their final charge and closed the house. The organization changed its focus to help indigent widows and remained active well into the twentieth century.

Notes
102. Cleveland, “Salem Charities.”

103. 1908 Salem city directory, 487.

104. Carol S. Lasser, A “Pleasingly Oppressive” Burden: The Transformation of Domestic Service and Female Charity in Salem, 1800-1840 (Fourth Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, Summer, 1978), 157.