A home of another kind

In the most comprehensive account ever written of an American orphanage, an institution about which even its many advocates know little, Kenneth Cmiel exposes America's changing attitudes toward child welfare. The book begins with the fascinating history of the Chicago Nursery and Half-Orphan Asylum from 1860 through 1984, when it became a full-time research institute. This is much more than a richly detailed account of one institution, and Cmiel shatters a number of popular myths about orphanages. Few realize that almost all children living in nineteenth-century orphanages had at least one living parent. And the austere living conditions so characteristic of the orphanage were prompted as much by health concerns as by strict Victorian morals. The book includes photographs and other illustrations of life at Chapin Hall through the years, with essay captions that give the story of the asylum in brief. Cmiel concludes with an epilogue addressing the current initiatives of the Republican Congress to bring back orphanages.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.