The Jewish Orphanage of Rhode Island (JORI) began as two separate organizations. In 1908, initially headed by the South Providence Ladies’ Aid Society and Mr. Herman Paster, the first charter for a specifically Jewish children’s orphanage was granted to “support and maintain orphan children between the ages of six and twenty one.” Very soon after obtaining the charter, the Ladies Aid Society withdrew their support to organize another home. At the same time, Mr. Paster obtained another charter, called Machzeka Hadas Orphans on Willard Ave in South Providence, which housed 17 children within its first few months of operation. The home operated by the South Providence Ladies’ Aid Society and their co-sponsors, the Montefiore Lodge Ladies Hebrew Benevolent Association, was named Hebrew Orphans Home and Day Nursery, located at 151 Orms St. next to the present day Sons of Jacob synagogue.

In January of 1910, the two homes merged and created The Jewish Orphanage of Rhode Island with Mr. Maurice Karpeles as President of the board. This new leadership was committed to obtaining a centrally located building to house the dependent children of the Jewish community, and purchased a large Victorian home located at 1213 North Main Street. This new forty-five bed location was led by superintendent Mr. Henry Woolf, along with board members such as Mrs. Ida Silverman, Mrs. Ida Bolotow, Col. Harry Cutler, Mr. Jacob Shartenberg, and countless others.

With the growing number of children living in the orphanage, the board decided it was time to purchase land and build a home that could accommodate more children, and allow them the comforts of a real home and of their community. In 1922, the board purchased land on Summit Avenue in Providence, and the cornerstone was laid on October 21, 1923. Construction of the New Jewish Orphanage of Rhode Island was completed, and the building was dedicated on October 5, 1924. This new state of the art home came fully equipped with tennis courts, a basketball court, and plenty of room for the children to enjoy the outdoors while making friends with the neighborhood children.

Throughout the years, the home saw several Superintendents, who in their various ways kept life for the children as normal as possible. Perhaps the most remembered Superintendent, Mr. Maurice Stollerman, was brought to JORI in 1926. Mr. Stollerman was ever the children’s advocate. He attempted to appoint guardians for all children considered full orphans so they might have an established emotional connection with a family during their time in the home. He also initiated steps that allowed the children who would be aging out of the home an easier transition to life on their own.

The children placed in the Jewish Orphanage were often sent to the home because their families could not afford to provide for them. Mr. Stollerman saw to it that if they did have a living parent or relative, that the families could regularly visit their children. Additionally, siblings in the home were often kept together, in the hope that they would feel some semblance of normalcy.

Though this orphanage was a home for displaced children, they were treated as the sons and daughters of the community, and were always taken care of spiritually, emotionally, and physically. The whole orphanage would participate in the Passover seder, and attended religious confirmation classes and services at Temple Emanuel. They held an annual Thanksgiving dance, at which funds for the home would be raised, and the children would put on plays, and showcase their musical talents in the JORI Band. Life at the Jewish Orphanage was not like life in many of the other institutions in Rhode Island.

The orphanage operated until 1942, when foster and adoption arrangements were made for the eight children who remained in the home.

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In June 1830, the residents of Tiverton gathered for the annual town meeting, an opportunity for the freemen of the town to participate in local government. Included on the day’s agenda was a proposal to create a town farm as a refuge for the destitute and mentally ill. The creation of this “asylum for the poor” made Tiverton one of the first towns in Rhode Island to adopt a new approach to caring for local paupers.

Before the creation of poorhouses, town farms, or asylums, many communities auctioned off the poor, encouraging affluent residents to place bids for their labor as indentured servants. By the mid-1800s, the shift from farm to factory work created a new group of landless, jobless, and itinerant poor—too many to be absorbed into the traditional system. Towns viewed poor farms as a modern, humane way to combat poverty, drunkenness, and deviation from social norms, while allowing people to earn their own keep. Town leaders hoped to reform the poor through labor, while decreasing the burden on taxpayers. Spending on poor relief was often the single largest item in town budgets.

Although the freemen of Tiverton favored establishing a town farm, locating funds and deciding on suitable property was a complicated task. More than a year passed before the appointed committee purchased sixty acres of farmland from the Gray family for $4,300. The town purchased livestock for the farm and gave the committee authorization “to finish the house standing on said farm, in a good and plain manner.” By 1832, the town farm was ready for occupants.

Life was not easy for inmates. Burdened with endless chores, they raised pigs and cattle, and cultivated corn and other “grain, roots and vegetables and provisions.” Inmates lived under the strict supervision of the farm’s caretaker who lived onsite to discipline and reform the poor. Annual inspections by town officials and written accounts submitted by the Overseers of the Poor ensured that the caretaker and inmates managed resources for the benefit of the town. The overseers expected the farm to be self-sufficient, with inmates raising enough food to feed themselves.

In 1886, the Overseers of the Poor ceased keeping records for the farm, marking the beginning of a slow transition from a strictly regulated poor farm to a refuge for the elderly and disabled. A 1910 Department of Commerce report indicated that town farm housed only eight inmates, mostly single men and women, who lived in the house that the Overseers of the Poor acquired nearly a century earlier.

Ruth Manchester, a lifelong resident of Tiverton, recalled playing with the caretaker’s children and visiting the farm’s kitchen for cookies and other baked treats as a child in the 1920s. Although the town farm still ran a small dairy—selling milk to Ruth’s family and other Tiverton residents—it was no longer the agricultural venture of earlier decades. With the establishment of the Social Security Act in 1935, other options became available to those, particularly the elderly and indigent, who had once found themselves at the mercy of the Overseers of the Poor. Tiverton’s Town Farm continued to operate until 1955, when it became a private rest home, which operated until 1982.

Although a small cemetery with the unmarked graves of inmates is nearby, the house is gone and only the names of the Overseers of the Poor are preserved in Tiverton’s town records. The names and identities of those who lived and worked on the farm are lost to history.

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For sixty-one years, an imposing, three-story building on Tobey Street operated by the Providence Children's Friend Society provided shelter and refuge to the children of Providence. Hundreds of children without hope – orphaned, neglected, abandoned – entered through the doors. Within the safety of the brick walls, they dreamed of second chances, aspirations, and life with new foster families.

Constructed in 1863, the Tobey Street Home had been a model of modern construction. Now, in 1926, the building was a creaking relic of a bygone age. The worn stairs sagged from generations of pounding feet. The basement boiler gurgled and leaked, fitfully heating the drafty building. Finally, the doors of the Tobey Street Home closed for the last time.

The Providence Children’s Friend Society did not end with the closure of the Tobey Street Home in 1926 – today it remains the oldest social service organization in the state that addresses the needs of neglected, orphaned, or abandoned children. Founded in 1834 by Harriet Ware, a young, idealistic schoolteacher in Providence’s India Point neighborhood, the institution has continually reinvented itself over the decades.

Initially, Harriet Ware offered assistance and makeshift accommodations to children in need, soliciting donations from churches and community institutions all across Providence. Upon the official incorporation of the Providence Children’s Friend Society, the founders expressed their principles regarding the care of dependent children:

The design of the institution embraces all children who are in condition of orphanage and that this is the only institution in the State, where any provision is made for their support and education. More comprehensive, however, in operation than a restricted orphan asylum, it is intended, also, to extend its blessings to those who are equally destitute, and perhaps more afflicted, than the bereaved and fatherless.  

Most importantly, the society welcomed all children in need, whether they were officially considered “orphans” or not, and  dedicated itself to providing the children in its care with an education. With the support of many prominent citizens of Providence, a small orphanage was opened, where children might stay for a time before being placed out with a foster family.

The orphanage moved several times, necessitated by the growing number of children in the society’s care, until the spacious Tobey Street Home was constructed during the Civil War. By the 1920s, however, the expense of running the orphanage and the changing nature and philosophy of child welfare convinced the institution’s directors to reconsider their approach.

Children’s Friend Society began to focus on other work, including general casework, adoption, and foster care placement and supervision. In 1949, the society merged with the Rhode Island Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Now known as Children’s Friend and Service of Rhode Island, the merged organization honors its long history by operating offices in both Providence and Central Falls and by continuing to provide assistance and advice to families with children in need.

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In nineteenth-century America, there were few laws and regulations regarding child welfare. Destitute parents neglected and abandoned their responsibilities. Unscrupulous guardians profited from child labor with little concern for their charges' well-being. Short-tempered or intemperate adults took out their anxieties and anger on helpless children. By the late 1800s, it was clear that an organization was needed to safeguard children’s interests, and in 1882, the Rhode Island Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (RISPCC) received a charter from the state legislature.

From its beginning, RISPCC was an early advocate of what we now call child welfare. It was a private organization that was quasi-governmental, with considerable powers to arrest and prosecute offenders. Over the course of its eighty years, before it merged to become part of Children’s Friend and Service in 1949, it evolved from acting as a guardian for children abused by the influences and actions of vicious parents to advocating for more economic support for parents so they might create a stable and healthy family life.

RISPCC’s legislative charter gave it considerable power to execute its mission. Agents could investigate complaints against parents or guardians for “wrongful neglect,” for using a child for “wanton, cruel or improper purposes,” for inducing a child to beg or steal, or for “gross and habitual cruelty.” RISPCC could enter homes and remove children, appear in court on behalf of children, and place children under indenture. The court could also award custody of state wards to RISPCC with the understanding that the organization would oversee the child’s transfer to either the Rhode Island State Home and School or a private orphanage.

As society’s attitudes toward child protection changed, so too did the philosophy of the RISPCC. Over time, RISPCC expanded its concerns to include child labor, curfew violations, truancy, child abuse, neglect, starvation, abandonment, sexual molestation, unwed mothers, incest, alcohol abuse and juvenile delinquency. Its respensibilities grew as well: service provider, policy developer, children’s advocate, social reformer, and – most importantly – significant spokesperson for child welfare.

In RISPCC’s early years, the few children actually removed from their homes were boarded with a matron on Sabin Street in Providence. By its third annual meeting, in 1885, it was voted to establish a temporary home for children. Donations allowed for the purchase of a shelter facility, which was located on the corner of Doyle Avenue and Camp Street. It operated there until 1953.

In 1946, RISPCC changed its name to Rhode Island Child Service, in hopes that the new name “might really give a picture of our work.” In 1949, recognizing that duplication of services by private agencies was ineffective, it merged with Children’s Friend Society to become Children’s Friend and Service. It was not until 1962, however, that the state of Rhode Island finally took responsibility for the investigation of child abuse and neglect complaints that RISPCC had overseen, making it one of the last states in the nation to do so.

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In June 1830, the residents of Tiverton gathered for the annual town meeting, an opportunity for the freemen of the town to participate in local government. Included on the day’s agenda was a proposal to create a town farm as a refuge for the destitute and mentally ill.

Before the creation of poorhouses, town farms, or asylums, many communities auctioned off the poor, encouraging affluent residents to place bids for their labor as indentured servants. By the mid-1800s, the shift from farm to factory work created a new group of landless, jobless, and itinerant poor — too many to be absorbed into the traditional system. Towns viewed poor farms as a modern, humane way to combat poverty, drunkenness, and deviation from social norms, while allowing people to earn their own keep. Town leaders hoped to reform the poor through labor, while decreasing the burden on taxpayers. Spending on poor relief was often the single largest item in town budgets.

Although the freemen of Tiverton favored establishing a town farm, locating funds and deciding on suitable property was a complicated task. More than a year passed before the appointed committee purchased sixty acres of farmland from the Gray family for $4,300. The town purchased livestock for the farm and gave the committee authorization “to finish the house standing on said farm, in a good and plain manner.” By 1832, the town farm was ready for occupants.

Life was not easy for inmates. Burdened with endless chores, they raised pigs and cattle, and cultivated corn and other “grain, roots and vegetables and provisions.” Inmates lived under the strict supervision of the farm’s caretaker who lived onsite to discipline and reform the poor. The overseers expected the farm to be self-sufficient, with inmates raising enough food to feed themselves.

In 1886, the Overseers of the Poor ceased keeping records for the farm, marking the beginning of a slow transition from a strictly regulated poor farm to a refuge for the elderly and disabled. A 1910 Department of Commerce report indicated that town farm housed only eight inmates, mostly single men and women, who lived in the same house that the Overseers of the Poor had acquired nearly a century earlier.

Ruth Manchester, a lifelong resident of Tiverton, recalled playing with the caretaker’s children and visiting the town farm’s kitchen for cookies and other baked treats as a child in the 1920s. Although the town farm still ran a small dairy — selling milk to Ruth’s family and other Tiverton residents — it was no longer the agricultural venture of earlier decades. With the establishment of the Social Security Act in 1935, other options became available to those, particularly the elderly and indigent, who had once found themselves at the mercy of the Overseers of the Poor. Tiverton’s Town Farm continued to operate until 1955, at which time it became a private rest home that finally closed in 1982.

Today, a small cemetery containing the unmarked graves of inmates marks the town farm. The farmhouse where inmates lived for more than a century has been demolished and only the names of the Overseers of the Poor are preserved in the town’s records. The names and identities of those who lived and worked on the Tiverton Town Farm are lost to history.

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In the early 1900s, Rhode Island was in the grip of a deadly epidemic – the great white plague. Each year, thousands of Americans died from tuberculosis; for children under the age of five, the disease was one of the top ten causes of death. Highly contagious, tuberculosis spread rapidly through crowded urban tenements in cities like Providence. Early tuberculosis symptoms overlapped with many other diseases – fever, weight loss and lack of appetite, fatigue – but as the disease progressed, the most identifiable feature was a persistent cough. By the time a patient was coughing up blood and sputum they were highly infectious. In particular, children, living and interacting with infected adults, were at great risk of contracting the disease themselves.

Sanatoriums for tuberculosis patients sprang up across the country. In Rhode Island, adults with active tuberculosis were sent to a clinic at Wallum Lake in Burrillville. Initially, no provisions were made for children who had been exposed to the disease but were not actively infectious. A Providence Journal reporter noted: “We have no proper hospital accommodations for tubercular children under 14 years. They must, therefore, remain in their tenement homes regardless of the lack of good food, fresh air, and proper care. The need for an all-year-round home for crippled and debilitated children is great. Perhaps no one knows this better than the tuberculosis worker.” Without careful medical supervision and a healthy diet, exposed children’s chances of developing active tuberculosis dramatically increased.

In 1912, the Providence League for the Suppression of Tuberculosis finally addressed this issue, opening a “preventorium” at the Lakeside Home in Warwick. At this bucolic location, tubercular children were treated to a regime of fresh air and exercise. During the summer, children slept on open-air sleeping porches and spent their days playing outside. The children even received their schooling outside, using an open air shelter as their classroom for all but the bitterest days of winter. Only when the “rosy cheeks and cheery voices of the children denote[d] returning strength and vigor” were they sent back to their homes in the city.

A regiment of doctors and nurses supervised the children at the Preventorium. With neither an inoculation nor a cure for tuberculosis, doctors focused on improving the children’s overall physical well-being. Many of the children arrived at the Preventorium underweight for their age. After several months of care on the Preventorium’s simple, wholesome diet, children often found themselves sprouting up overnight, returning home several inches taller.

Two other groups of underprivileged children were also accommodated at the Lakeside Home, strictly isolated from the potentially infectious children of the Preventorium. Each week during the summer, a repurposed Red Cross ambulance stopped at the Quaker Meeting House in downtown Providence. Families gathered at the site hoping that their children might be approved for a vacation at the Lakeside Home. Children who passed the medical inspection piled into the ambulance with their luggage – by a dint of “scientific packing,” the ambulance could accommodate thirty-five children. At the Lakeside Home, these children from Providence’s urban core enjoyed several weeks of swimming, hiking, and playing games. Year round, the Lakeside Home also accommodated a small number of children who were convalescing from illnesses or operations.

Through the 1940s, The Lakeside Home continued to offer itself as a center for convalescents. However, children’s hospitals and better medical services slowly changed the face of medical care in Rhode Island. By the 1950s, modern antibiotics could now effectively treat and cure tuberculosis. The Preventorium grew obsolete.

On September 19, 1950, the Providence Tuberculosis League ended their operation of the Lakeside Home and Preventorium, transferring the property to Children’s Friend and Service for operation as a temporary shelter for homeless or neglected children.

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In 1861, five young ladies, attendees of a prominent Providence academy for girls, met together for an afternoon of sewing. Unlike many of their classmates, they were concerned with more than the latest fashions, juicy local gossip, and their future matrimonial prospects. With the country ensnared in the Civil War, hospital supplies and handmade comforts for soldiers were in great demand. In Providence, the wartime economy had also made life increasingly difficult for the city’s poor. Motivated to improve their community, the girls began to canvass their neighborhoods for funds and supplies. After an encounter with a crusty Yankee tycoon who declared that the young lady was “positively irrepressible,” the Irrepressible Society was born.

Nineteenth-century Rhode Island was a world dominated by men. Until 1874, married women had no control over their own earnings. Until 1917, women could not vote. Nonetheless, the women of the Irrepressible Society exerted their independence, refusing to allow men to serve in the society in anything other than an advisory capacity. Initially, even married women could not hold offices within the society, reflecting its inclinations as a “spinster society.”

By the early 1870s, the Irrepressible Society had expanded beyond its humble beginning as a ladies’ sewing circle. They even had a coat of arms: two pairs of scissors rampant on a gold field, crowned by a thimble. Now, most of the actual sewing work was done by needy women compensated for their labor by the society. Although the Irrepressible Society’s mission included “charitable work of the city” more generally, they were particularly concerned with the plight of women without means to support themselves. Providing instruction in hand and machine sewing, the society made it possible for disadvantaged women to find gainful employment and improve their lives.

The Irrepressible Society was also remarkably forward-thinking in regard to the its finances. Acknowledging the impossibility of funding their work solely through donations, the ladies of the society endeavored to make it as self-supporting as possible. By 1929, half of the society’s revenue came from the sale of its goods and clothing. Although some items were made available to impoverished residents of the city at little or no cost, the Irrepressible Society also operated a small retail store. In addition, the society cultivated clients who placed large wholesale orders. For example, the Providence Lying-In Hospital purchased thousands of layette bundles for newborn infants over the years.

Part charitable society and part social club, most of the ladies of the Irrepressible Society were members of well-connected Providence families. Fundraising events hosted by the society were the talk of Providence. In 1884, the society hosted an elaborate “Charity Ball” that quickly became an annual winter tradition. Reviewing another society event, a local reporter began thusly: “The tea party of the Irrepressibles – we have been obliged to write that word three times, because our pen would slip into Irresistibles, as anybody’s would after coming from the blaze of matron beauty and maiden loveliness that lighted up the nice old rooms in which this society held its housewarming last evening.”

In 1929, the Irrepressible Society merged with three other social service agencies in Providence to form the new “Bureau for the Handicapped.” Seven years later, the society officially disbanded, turning all of their remaining funds over to the bureau. Although the new agency would continue to provide many of the same services – including job training, temporary employment, and financial relief – the days of the Irrepressible Society’s croquet parties and elaborate theatricals were over.

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