34 OLDEST CENTERS EXCHANGE NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2010 The heroic beginnings of child care Looking back two centuries by Roger Neugebauer and Debra Hartzell Kings Daughters Day School, Plainfield, New Jersey The field of early care and education Graham-Windham Services crowd gathered on the side of the street. has a long, proud history. In conducting New York, New York Never one of those who passed by as if research on the oldest child care centers In 1806, Mrs. Isabella Graham, Mrs. it were nothing to her, she stopped her in the United States, we discovered Alexander Hamilton, and 12 other horse, got out of the buggy, and walked 75 organizations (see complete list on women established the Orphan Asylum into her future. She found the object of pages 36 and 38) that have been in Society. Other early contributors to this interest to be a small, undernourished operation more than 90 years; the oldest organization included Governor DeWitt boy lying on the ground crying from of which, Newark Day Care Center, has Clinton, Peter Stuyvesant, and Jenny pain. When Fannie Battle asked what been in operation for 207 years! Lind. These men and women were had happened, she was told that he had concerned with the plight of orphaned “got run over by an ice wagon.” When Rather than summarizing the many children who were often forced to work no one could identify the child, his stories of these historic programs, we for food and shelter under harsh and parents, or his residence, she picked up will let them tell their own amazing exploitative circumstances. As New York the four year old in her arms, put him in stories. City grew, these concerns broadened to the buggy, and drove him to a hospital include the children of “poor but worthy where his injuries were treated. parents” who needed to “go to their Sheltering Arms Early Education daily labors” knowing their children and Family Centers The more Fannie Battle investigated “would be trained for some practical, Atlanta, Georgia the North Nashville area, the more she useful course of life and taught their Our organization was founded in 1888 discovered neglected, small children who duties and responsibilities as members and chartered in 1900 by a group of had no daytime care while their mothers of society.” As a result, in 1835, the women from the First United Method- worked outside their homes. She imme- Society for the Relief of Half Orphan ist Church in downtown Atlanta. While diately laid plans to rent a room in a con- and Destitute Children was opened to delivering mended clothes to the needy, veniently located house near the cotton meet the child care needs of working they found a child tied to a bedpost for mills where a few mothers could leave parents. ‘safekeeping’ while her mother worked their children for day care; Fannie Battle long hours in a cotton mill. Determined financed the rental from her own limited to help, they began caring for the first Fannie Battle Day Home for Children means. It was soon found that one room children in 1888 in an abandoned Nashville, Tennessee was inadequate to railroad boxcar. They soon were able to Fannie Battle was meet the need — talk cotton mill owners into providing driving in her it quickly grew to space for them to care for the children horse-drawn buggy ten children. She on site in the cotton mills. This was no along a street in wanted more for doubt among the first ‘corporate spon- North Nashville the children than sored’ child care. when she spied a mere baby tend- Reprinted with permission from Exchange magazine. Visit us at www.ChildCareExchange.com or call (800) 221-2864. Multiple use copy agreement available for educators by request. OLDEST CENTERS 35 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2010 EXCHANGE ing while mothers worked. Soon a room beginning, the Mothers’ Aid Society was rented for a gymnasium, because sought to lessen the effects of poverty Fannie Battle believed in good health of on families. In 1883, the Society opened body, mind, and soul. a laundry at the nursery to provide jobs for unemployed mothers. Soon after, the South Side Day Nursery ‘Intelligence Office’ was established to St. Louis, Missouri locate jobs for mothers in homes around From the 1888 Second Annual Report of New Haven. South Side Day Nursery: “Every dollar spent at the Nursery means from one Holy Family Day Home to three dollars earned by the mother San Francisco, California while her little one is in our care. But In the 1870s, San Francisco was an amaz- Community Day Nursery that is not all. Every mother receives ing community of multi-ethnic families East Orange, New Jersey her child at night happy, clean, and in and neighborhoods — the same diversity On a cold day in March, a volunteer social excellent physical condition. Another of which San Francisco is so justly proud worker visited a home to find three young and somewhat unexpected good result today. At the same time, it was a city of children alone. There was no heat, so the has been secured . women wanting both millionaires and of desperately poor house was cold. The oldest boy was nine work have been brought in contact with families. Moved by the often-troubled years old and was preparing a meal for the those who want workers. Our nursery lives of her neighbors, Lizzie Armer younger two with only a bottle of milk and is fast becoming a bureau for the supply (known as Sister Dolores) founded the a loaf of bread. Their mother had no one to of work to working mothers. People Sisters of the Holy Family in 1872. The care for them while she was at work. The of various denominations are working Order began to care for the needs of year was 1892. together for tender babies and toiling broken families, the lonely, the elderly, mothers, two classes of people whom it the sick, the poor, and the hungry. Clearly, there was a need for women in the has always been hard to help, without area to have care for their children, so in wasting money and encouraging habits Mostly, though, they turned their atten- 1894 a committee was formed to address of idleness and shameless dependency.” tion to the difficult lives facing so many the problem. A day nursery was opened children in the booming city. In many in a house at 11 New Street in Orange Leila Day Nurseries families both parents had to work to and a matron was hired to supervise the New Haven, Connecticut make ends meet, so children were often children. Volunteers made soup at home to New Haven in 1879 seemed to be burst- left unattended, roaming the streets and bring to the nursery each day. The tuition ing at the seams. Every day, newcom- alleys in dangerous neighborhoods. By was five cents a day for one child, eight ers from Europe streamed into the city, 1878, the Sisters opened their first Day cents for two, and ten cents a day for three bringing the population from 20,000 Home to “provide a place where the children. in 1850 to 100,000 in 1900. Many im- needs of the child could be attended migrants found jobs in New Haven’s to while peace of mind and material Toledo Day Nursery homes, shops, and factories, especially assistance” could be offered to the be- Toledo, Ohio in garment factories. Founded as the leaguered parents. The Sisters began to The Toledo Day Nursery’s roots are in the Mothers’ Aid Society of New Haven in expand their program and investigated Adams Street Mission. This Mission was 1878, the school was renamed Leila Day the concept of Kindergarten. In addition started in a saloon in order to find em- Nursery in 1885 in memory of Leila In- to maintaining and supporting the fami- ployment for men and women, to care for gersoll Gauss, a board member’s relative lies of the poor, they could also prepare young children, and to take older who died at ten years of age. Mission the children to successfully enter the children off the streets. The children Statement: to help the poor hardwork- school system. were bathed first thing in the morning and ing women of New Haven, by relieving fed twice a day. Many of the children’s them of the care of their children during The Early Childhood Education Commu- parents lined up before 7 AM to take any the day and to improve those children nity owes so much to Friedrich Froebel. available jobs, paying five cents a day to physically and morally, so that as they He truly pioneered early childhood the nursery if they could. grow up they may become intelligent, education as we know it today. The Sis- honest, and well-to-do members of the ters were certified Froebel Kindergarten Day Nursery Association community, instead of inmates of the teachers and by 1906 pioneered this con- Scranton, Pennsylvania poorhouse or penitentiary. From the cept of Kindergarten on the Pacific Coast. The Day Nursery was founded in 1909 by 36 OLDEST CENTERS EXCHANGE NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2010 The Exchange Top 75 North America’s Oldest Child Care Organizations Organization Location Executive Director Date Established Newark Day Center Newark, New Jersey Trish Morris-Yamba 1803 Graham-Windham Services New York, New York Poul Jensen 1806 North End Children’s Center Boston, Massachusetts James Luisi 1826 Leak and Watts Services Yonkers, New York Alan Mucatel 1831 St. Ann’s Infant and Maternity Home Hyattsville, Maryland Sister Mary Bader 1860 Toledo Day Nursery Toledo, Ohio Pat Scheuer 1871 Associated Early Care and Education Boston, Massachusetts Wayne Ysaguirre 1878 Holy Family Day Home San Francisco, California Donna Cahill 1878 Leila Day Nurseries New Haven, Connecticut Gladys Deutsch 1878 CBA Hurst Preschool San Francisco, California Irene Byrne 1879 Virginia Day Nursery New York, New York Aurora Ceniza 1879 Center for Families and Children Cleveland, Ohio Lisa Goss 1882 Edward Street Child Services Worcester, Massachusetts Diane Bruce 1883 Square One Springfield, Massachusetts Joan Kagan 1883 Lowell Day Nursery Association Lowell, Massachusetts Jo-Anne Spence 1885 Cheerful Home Childcare & Early Learning Center Quincy, Illinois Jeris Grim 1886 Columbus Early Learning Centers Columbus, Ohio Kim A.