Nursery and Child’s Hospital manuscript collection

The Nursery and Child’s Hospital was founded in 1875 as the Protestant Infant Asylum of Baltimore City. A group of the city’s women, led by Mrs. William H. Brune, were concerned by the lack of Protestant orphanages. They founded the nondenominational asylum to care for orphaned and abandoned babies and find them adoptive families which would operate on charitable donations. The asylum was given two rooms at the Maternité Hospital at 113 West Lombard Street in Baltimore, and doctors and nurses from the College of Physicians and Surgeons attended to the medical needs of the children. The institution took sixty-six infants in its first year. It was decided to move to a new location at Gilmor and Presstman Streets to accommodate the large number of wards. The asylum was able to find families for eleven children in its first year, but the early years also were plagued by very high mortality rates because of illness and malnutrition. The Board was forced to purchase a lot in Loudon Park Cemetery.

The asylum moved once again in 1879 to the former Schroeder mansion at 400-410 North Schroeder Street, which had previously housed the Union Orphan Asylum. The asylum became the Nursery and Child’s Hospital and added additional services. The mansion was expanded during the 1880s to create a separate hospital wing. The nursery provided care for orphaned children up to age four. The hospital provided medical services free of charge to impoverished children up to fifteen years old, and a free dispensary was opened in the 1890s. The hospital also began to receive financial support from the city and state for its work. Beginning in 1925, a significant portion of the funding came from Baltimore’s Community Fund.

The organization also moved away from taking babies under six months and began to focus on children two to six years old. The wards could be housed at the facility or placed with foster homes. In some instances, parents would temporarily admit their children to the orphanage, because they could not afford to care for them. Oftentimes, when their circumstances improved, they were able to take their children back. They received schooling at the facility. If a child had not been fostered or adopted by the time he or she reached the age limit, he or she would be placed with another city agency.

In 1932, the Nursery and Child’s Hospital moved to 420-422 North Fulton Street, because the Schroeder Street buildings had become antiquated and unusable. This was only a temporary space for the institution, because the following year, property was purchased on Woodbourne Avenue to build a tailored facility. The move also led to the end of the organization’s hospital work. The new building at 721 Woodbourne Avenue opened in 1938 and the institution once again changed its name and took on a new identity.

The Nursery and Child Study Home of Maryland, Inc. became a group home which cared for children who struggled to find a place elsewhere. The new admittances ranged in age from four to fourteen. These children faced different challenges and often had severe emotional and behavioral issues which required close supervision and psychiatric care. This included chronic truants, those who had difficulties adjusting to foster care, and some juvenile court cases. The home employed an on-site psychiatrist, an on-call medical doctor, and nurses as well as housemothers and fathers to care for the children. This change in mission also necessitated another name change in 1943 to the Child Study Center of Maryland which reflected its new services. The center’s goal was to rehabilitate the children in its care, so they could return to society. The study center continued in this vein for many years and evolved its practices and policies as the field of child psychiatry changed and grew. In 1964, the center became affiliated with the Children’s Psychiatric Services of Johns Hopkins Hospital.

The Woodbourne property was eventually sold to the Baltimore City Department of Juvenile Services. The center became the Woodbourne Center which still operates as a residential treatment center for boys with severe mental health issues.