Publisher's Synopsis
The New York Juvenile Asylum (NYJA) was founded in 1851 by a group of prominent businessmen and professionals concerned about vagrancy among poor children in New York City. It was designed to house, educate, reform, and indenture children who were homeless, truant, or convicted of petty crimes in New York City. The NYJA being an alternative to the punitive House of Refuge where more hardened young criminals (incarcerated alongside much older adults) were being sent. Most children accepted into the NYJA were between the ages of seven and fifteen, but children both younger and older were accepted at times. The NYJA relocated to 176th Street between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues in 1856. By the end of 1919 over 42,000 children had been admitted to the Asylum. About 6,000 were sent West on orphan trains in what is now referred to as America's Orphan Train Movement. This book consists of a list of over 36,000 names of children gleaned from the surviving records of the NYJA covering the years 1853-1923.
