The Girl's industrial Home holds a fascination for me because it was an organization started by the women of Bloomington to respond to problems that our state did not meet, and it existed very close to where I now live. At the Home girls would have a safe place to live and learn. They were sent to the Washington Grade School and in 1910 one girl was in her third year at the high school. However, not all girls had the same opportunities and many were sent out to work. Like the orphan trains that I also write about, the girls would be indentured out as house servants.
In 1910 a report was made by the Illinois Department of Visitation of Children Placed Out in Private Homes. This was the fifth report of this kind, but earlier copies are not available. "Placing out" was indenturing -- the family agreed to house and feed a girl, and she was in the home to be a maid or child minder. Melrose Scherman was placed out with a family in Cheney's Grove by the Girl's Industrial Home. This family took such good care of Melrose that she developed pneumonia and died at Brokaw Hospital in September of 1910.
The report also contains the general menu of the Home:
They were certainly not overfed -- and I wonder what they did with all those cans of fruit! The property was three acres, and I would imagine they had their own fruit trees and garden. Not a single vegetable on the table besides potatoes (a starch) and corn (ground up into bread)!!
Only 52 girls made their way through the Home in 1910, 24 returned to their families during the year and 11 were indentured out. Four were sent to other institutions. The year began with 28 girls and ended with 12. Half of the girls in the home were "boarded," in other words, their family or "friends" paid the $10 monthly fee necessary for their keep. Four of the girls had been sent there by the courts -- they were probably the girls sent on to other institutions.
The building in 1910 was not the "new" building designed by Arthur Pillsbury in 1916 (pictured, but no longer standing). The old building was a brick two story building with two dormitories, where the girls shared beds (which was not advised due to contagious diseases that children could pass to one another.) The inspector noted that there was no fire hose or fire escape in the building -- the only means of fire suppression were a couple of fire extinguishers. Of course, this home was run on a shoe string by a committee of ladies who were attempting to answer a need that our state was ignoring. Mrs. S. J. DeMotte was the Secretary, she had all the records of the school at her own home and could not show them to the visitor, but she informed the visitor that there were "not many" court remanded children in the school. To admit that the Home had court remanded children was to admit they had children of "low quality" in their school. Although there were only 4 remandments in 1910, there were 29 in 1909 and 24 in 1916, which are the only years for which I have found statistics.
One of those "low quality" children living in the home in 1910 was Agnes May Albee, who had been given up by her parents in February 1906 when her father was in jail for larceny and her mother was living with Agnes' grandfather. Agnes was just four years old when she appeared in the McLean County courtroom of Judge Russell, and the reporter noted how she was singing to herself and climbing over the furniture of the courtroom, oblivious to the decision being made. Her mother said that she could not get a job because there was no place for Agnes to be while she worked. This was a poor excuse, because, at least during day time hours, the Settlement House on West Mulberry Street provided nursery school care for working mothers.
In 1920, Agnes Albee was found in the home of Robert Coble in Saybrook, where she was a servant. Agnes was probably not placed out in 1910 at the age of 8, but she would have been at a slightly older age, due to the fact that her parents were probably not paying her board at the Home. No further information could be found about Agnes Albee, who probably lost all contact with her parents.