New Orleans Women and the Poydras Home by Pamela Tyler

Author:Pamela Tyler [Tyler, Pamela]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Medical, History, Social Science, Women's Studies, Regional Studies
ISBN: 9780807163238
Google: CmqmCwAAQBAJ
Publisher: LSU Press
Published: 2016-04-25T04:09:06+00:00

8

FAREWELL TO THE OLD POYDRAS

There was a little girl

Who had a little curl

Right in the middle of her forehead.

And when she was good she was very, very good,

But when she was bad, she was horrid.

If we should conceive the history of the Poydras Home as an orchestral symphony, robust notes of triumphalism would sound the theme for its first century; flourishes from trumpets’ bright brass and brisk rhythm from tympani would indicate stout courage, steely resolution, and steady progress against all odds. But in the movement for the second century, a melancholy music plays; slower tempo and muted minor chords will serve to characterize the next fifty years at Poydras. Mournful oboes and bassoons phrase plaintive questions that seem to have no answers. In the face of abundant evidence, a half century of decline cannot be ignored, and decline undeniably plagued Poydras as it entered its second century. As the twentieth century advanced, several factors combined to force a steady reduction in the number of girls whom Poydras served. So drastic was the enrollment decline that, eventually, the Poydras board faced a situation that threatened to smother their institution’s very existence. A constellation of challenging circumstances, including a troubling breakdown of discipline among the girls at Poydras, a diminishing level of involvement by the managers themselves, the rise of social work as a profession, increasing state interventions, and the severe economic hardships of the 1930s worked together to present the women of the board with a difficult choice. Daunted, but determined to carry on, in the end they faced facts, swallowed hard, and voted to change their mission. The Poydras symphony was not yet at an end.

Powerful social currents swirled far beyond the iron gates of Poydras and, inevitably, made themselves felt at the asylum. The early twentieth century is remembered as the Progressive Era, an epoch when Americans came to accept the notion that disinterested experts in the employ of government could best address troubling social problems fostered by increasing urbanization and industrialization. A corollary to this belief in professionals and government held that the day of the amateur and the volunteer, as exemplified by benevolent associations and private charitable institutions, had passed.

One aspect of progressivism involved what Americans of the Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson eras called the “child saving” movement, dedicated to seeking a better life for all children. Zealous child welfare advocates adopted an ambitious agenda. They pressed vigorously for establishment of juvenile courts and compulsory school attendance regulations; they promoted laws to criminalize child abuse and child labor. Casting a critical eye on orphanages and condemning them as impersonal warehouses that produced maladjusted youngsters, the child-rescuers repeatedly insisted that foster homes should replace institutional care for children. Inspired by the 1909 White House Conference on Dependent Children, which had deplored the then-common practice of institutionalizing needy and neglected children, progressives also began to press successfully for “mothers’ pensions,” modest stipends that would allow impoverished women attempting to raise children alone to keep their families intact,

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