Lessons in Advertising, Act I: Guilt.

[autochrome.livejournal.com]

Comments

[reynardo.livejournal.com]

No, two different things. You could be an orphan if just one parent was dead, if your other parent surrendered you to an orphan's home. Then you were available for adoption, but there were many more children than were wanted for adoption. Children older than babies tended not to find new homes, and would instead be given various trades or taught skills that would serve them later. Quite often older children would be sent to be low-paid live-in farm workers in remote areas - the girls would be cook-cleaner-dogsbody and the boys would be labourers.

Children's Homes were the places kids would stay instead of foster parents. They'd be run the same as orphanages, but the parents would be paying a fee for the care of the children. In "Caddie", the Matron noted that Caddie was paying the lowest fee, but was the only mother who visited the children every single week.

My godmother was a carer in the Burnside Home in Sydney in the 1960s. By then, they were run more like normal homes in that there were only 8-10 children in a house (rather than a dorm) and the "House Mother" would be living in and caring for them. Again, this was instead of foster families (which existed but there weren't so many of them), and these would be children who were expecting to go back to their parents some day.

Which makes me wonder if for all that it's called "Orphan Asylum", I wonder if both sorts of children lived at the one in the picture. Or if the artist didn't know how the places worked.

[charliesmum.livejournal.com]

My grandmother was put in an orphanage for a bit when her mom left her dad. I don't know details, as my grandmother never talked about it much, so I don't know how long she was there. When my great-grandmother remarried she took my grandmother back.

I do know my grandmother got influenza or something because they put her in a bed that was infected. (some disease that was plaguing people back in the 20s or 30s. I forget)

/anecdatata

That advert is just disturbing.