The Children’s Bureau

The Indianapolis Benevolent Society created the Widows and Orphans Friends’ Society in 1850. Originally, it paid private families to take in and care for individual orphans. The Widows and Orphans Friends’ society bought a residence and, in 1855, opened the Indianapolis Orphans Asylum at 14th and Capitol Streets. It helped over one hundred children. IBS supported the use of asylums to impose control and order over citizens affecting social norms. These asylums helped churches and families in need of placing the responsibility of care in another’s hands. Children and sometimes mothers would board at the orphanage, which acted less like an institutionalized asylum despite its name. Fundraising helped support the Indianapolis Orphans Asylum. In a newspaper from 1858, an exhibition of Italian paintings was displayed so the admission proceeds of 50 cents each person could benefit the asylum.

In 1875 the Indianapolis Orphans Asylum became its own organization providing resources for children and advocated better working conditions, access to basic education, and reforms in child marriage laws. The organization expanded to three additional institutions before a 1934 financial struggle caused by the Great Depression led the Orphan Asylum and the Family Welfare Society to combine. This resulted in the creation of the Children's Bureau of the Indianapolis Orphan Asylum. The bureau focused primarily on adoptions.