“I Dream of Them Almost Every Night”

Abstract

This article reconceptualizes orphanages as child care, exploring the ways in which working-class fathers used institutions in times of family crisis to meet their child care needs. By examining the white, largely widowed men who placed their children in the United Presbyterian Orphan’s Home in Pittsburgh from the 1880s through the 1920s, the study sheds light on working-class fatherhood, a little understood aspect of family history. Using rich new sources not previously available to scholars, the article incorporates rigorous quantitative analysis of the records of 590 children at the institution, providing new insight into the lives of working-class fathers struggling to balance their labor and parenting responsibilities as they used the orphanage as a strategy for family survival.