The Johns Hopkins Hospital Colored Orphan Asylum

The orphan asylum operated as its own facility from 1875 to 1914. It was overseen by a standing committee of The Johns Hopkins Hospital Board of Trustees, while day-to-day operations were managed by an all-female Board of Visitors, matrons, teachers, and other staff. The asylum primarily cared for female children and provided food, housing, medical care, education, and religious instruction, as well as training in domestic service so that wards were fitted for “respectable employment” when they came of age.

In 1914, the trustees decided to convert the asylum buildings into a convalescent home for African American children who required orthopedic care. That facility, The Johns Hopkins Hospital School and Convalescent Home for Colored Children, closed in 1917 due to hospital funding issues. While the convalescent home was in operation, a small number of orphan asylum wards continued to live on the premises with a matron; the rest were placed in private homes as domestic servants or boarded at other schools or institutions. After the convalescent home closed in 1917, all wards of the orphan asylum were placed or boarded elsewhere. The hospital continued to manage wards’ care until the last young women reached the age of majority (21) in 1923.

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