Visitors of Public Charities for Philadelphia County 1899 report

Copy of a Report made by the visitors for Philadelphia County, of the Board of Commissioners of Public Charities, of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

1899.45029 p. 105 of NARA record

EDUCATIONAL HOME

Forty-ninth & Greenway Avenue, visited January 20th, 1899, by Mrs. Lueretia M.B. Mitchell, Mrs. Etta? C. Taylor, and Mrs. Henry T. Frank.

The condition of this Home was found most unsatisfactory. The floors were dirty, not even well swept. In one school-room could be seen the marks of a broom, as though water had been thrown and the dirt not loosened. Rolls of dust were gathered in the register, and the marble mantel was stained with tobacco juice. Boxes, filled with bits of paper , and used for spittoons, were standing in the halls, and in the reading and recreation rooms.

The jail-like recreation room is unchanged, and the same dark, dirty stair-way leads to it. There are the same black walls, where the boys “will use their shoe-brushes on them”, making it useless to white-wash.

We found one boy in the shoe-shop assisting in the work, two others were said to be detailed to work there. Three boys were at work in the bake-house, sweeping a dusty asphalt floor, and sending clouds of dust over the uncovered pans they had filled with small rolls to be baked later. There is apparently no oversight of the work by one who knows how a house should be kept. The closet in the yard was found not improved over last year. It was said to have been flushed that morning. The lavatory was furnished with long troughs in a dark cellar, three of which were without running water. One small cake of soap was all there was to be seen. Separate towels are furnished, but not tooth-brushes. The boys’ hands at the dinner table would indicate the scarcity of both soap and water.

One hundred and three young men were here at this visit, between the ages of eight, and twenty-three years. Nine officers and eighteen employees make the working corps. The assistant Superintendent is an Indian brought up in the Institution. [Comment: probably David Peake].

This is a contract school under the control of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs. It is nonsectarian by an amended charter of recent date. With its present outfit and income it is entirely unable to give the training, such a school ought to give.

These Indian boys brought largely from New York State could find, it would seem in their own public schools at home, all that is offered in this school.

Seven boys boarding at this Home go to the City Schools, and one is studying Dentistry at the University of Pennsylvania. Nine are working at trades in the City.

Health good. Two deaths in 1898. [possibly Thomas Billings and Antione Kabauser]

Document History

• Transcribed by HS 2025-07-27