A wave of very poor immigrants and social disruption were among the many conditions that led to an epidemic of infanticide and abandonment during the late 1860s. It was not unusual for the
sisters at St. Peter's Convent on Barclay Street to find a tiny waif left on the doorstep.
Sister Mary Irene FitzGibbon, of St. Peter's approached Mother Mary Jerome, the Superior of the Sisters of Charity, regarding the need of rescuing these children. Archbishop (afterwards Cardinal)
John McCloskey urged the Sisters to open an asylum for such children.
The Foundling Asylum (1869–1879) The New York Foundling Asylum of the Sisters of Charity was established on October 8, 1869. Shortly thereafter, Sisters Irene, Teresa Vincent, and Ann Aloysia began operating out of a rented house at 17 East 12th Street in New York's
Greenwich Village, where they received an infant on their first night of operation. 45 more babies followed in that first month. Due to space considerations, the Foundling opened a Boarding department in November and began placing children under the care of neighbours. The need for this type of service was confirmed by the 123 babies that were left by January 1, 1870. Within a year, the Foundling purchased a larger house at 3 Washington Square. After two years, The Foundling had accepted 2,500 babies. The
New-York Historical Society has a collection of the notes left with the abandoned babies, which is part of a larger collection of historic photographs of the Foundling maintained by the Society. The Foundling also accepted unmarried mothers. With help from a state matching grant, construction began on a new property between East 68th and 69th, Lexington and Third in 1872. An adoption department was established to find permanent homes for children; such placement first occurred in May 1873. In an attempt to keep Catholic children in Catholic homes, the Foundling Hospital began their own
mercy train efforts and soon grew to a scale that rivaled CAS. Parishioners in the destination regions were asked to accept children, and parish priests provided applications to approved families. The Foundling Hospital then placed children with families who requested a child. The Foundling's approach to child placements differed from CAS in two respects. First, the organization heavily relied on local priests in states with predominantly Catholic populations to facilitate the placements. Second, it made use of indenture contracts to require host families to raise the children as Catholic. The
United States Supreme Court case involving the New York Foundling Hospital began when nineteen children were sent to
Clifton, Arizona territory, and placed with Roman-Catholic Mexican American families living there. These children stayed with their Mexican American foster parents for less than two days before a group of
vigilante white men forcibly removed them and redistributed the children themselves among the wives of leading white citizens. In an attempt return the children to their care, the New York Foundling Hospital filed 17
writs of habeas corpus with the local sheriff. The New York Foundling Hospital appealed the case of William Norton to the United States Supreme Court, and oral arguments in New York Foundling Hospital v. Gatti were made in April 1906. In October of the same year,
Justice William Rufus Day released the opinion of the court. Ruling narrowly on the case as an issue of statutory interpretation, Day decided that it was improper to use the writ of habeas corpus in custody cases, as children are not entitled to personal freedom.
The Foundling Hospital (1880–1957) In response to an increasing need for skilled medical and nursing care for mothers and children, The New York Foundling began providing health services in addition to social services, changing its name to The New York Foundling Hospital to more accurately reflect its services. The hospital was located between 68th and 69th Streets and between Lexington and Third Avenues. Among its medical programs was St. Ann's Hospital (opened 1880), which provided unmarried mothers with medical treatment; and St. John's Hospital for Sick Children (1882), This method of keeping airways open saved thousands of children from the life-threatening disease
diphtheria, an epidemic at the time. In 1881 Sister Mary Irene established one of the first day nurseries for pre-school children of working mothers. Beginning in 1945, The Foundling also operated a developmental clinic to observe, examine and analyze the
developmental norms for young children. The clinic became a learning center for students from New York City area medical schools, nursing schools, and psychology departments. These programs were the beginning of, and were subsequently incorporated into, what became
Saint Vincent's Hospital in New York City. While The Foundling provided medical treatment in addition to adoption and support services for mothers-in-need, it wasn't until the 1930s that a
Social Service department was established to assist those who could not properly care for their children. ==The New York Foundling today==