Michael Keene - Local Author

Posted

on Nov 19, 2014

Joining us today was local author Michael Keene. Mr. Keene was a financial advisor for 25 years, before curiosity about the history of Midtown Plaza led him to a new career. While digging into that location’s history, he came across the term “Hoodoo Corner.” His research into that term and the history of Midtown resulted in his first book, "Folklore and Legends of Rochester." He has since written three more books. His most recent is "Abandoned - the Untold Story of Orphan Asylums" and he talked about that book with us today.

In 1848, famine was widespread in Ireland. During the famine an estimated one million people died from starvation and disease. Another one million emigrated to the United States. Many of them, poor and with no contacts here, would settle in the “Five Points” area of lower Manhattan, not far from the port where they landed. This area was internationally notorious as a disease-ridden, crime-infested slum.

Rotarian Gary Haigh (R), welcomes Michael T. Keene, author of "Abandoned"

By the end of the Civil War, there were as many as 30,000 homeless children living in the Five Points slums. Sleeping in alleyways, under bridges and in sewers; many survived by resorting to petty crime and prostitution. Mr. Keene’s book tells the stories of the early orphanages and of their founders. He tells of the “Orphan Train” movement, one of the early attempts at placing out orphans to be raised in homes.

In practice, this was closer to indenture servitude than to today’s foster care. Homeless children were placed on trains and sent west to the farming communities of upstate New York or Ohio, among others. At each stop, the children were made available to any family that would take them. There was a contractual obligation that the family would care for the child, who would work for the family. At the end of the contract the family would have to provide $100 and 2 suits of clothes at age 18 for boys. Girls would receive $50 and one dress at age 21.

Some 250,000 children went out on these orphan trains. Theirs is just one of many stories within the pages of Mr. Keene’s book. All of them are intriguing and worth a read. We thank Gary for bringing Mr Keene to see us today, so that he could share some of those stories with us.