House of Reformation and Instruction for Colored Children

More Than Meets the Eye: History of Maryland Through Prints, 1750-1900
Room 2: Evangelical Religion and Reform

Maryland Historical Society
Library of Maryland History
201 W. Monument Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
Phone: 410-685-3750
Fax: 410-385-2105
E-mail: library @mdhs.org

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Maryland History In Prints: 1752-1900
by Laura Rice

House of Reformation and Instruction for Colored Children

Drawn by Max Levy
From Report on the Public Charities... 1877, opp. p.70

1877

Wood engraving

The House of Reformation was founded by white philanthropists because "We have a large colored population among us.[who are].in a deplorable state of ignorance, and as ignorance and crime go hand in hand, the class of juvenile offenders in question must of necessity be large." The institution admitted black children found guilty of incorrigibility, vagrancy, and stealing. Some children had lost one or both of their parents. Others were removed from their homes by officers of the Orphans Court because one or both of their parents were "intemperate" or unwilling to raise them.

In addition to providing an education and trade to needy children, the school served another, less altruistic purpose: "The need of agricultural labor throughout our State, as well as the great want of competent house servants, is daily becoming more pressing, while the material for intelligent labor is being contaminated in our prisons, or growing up in idleness and vice in our lanes and alleys, and rapidly becoming an element of danger, when it should be one of strength in society."

The school was located in Prince George's County, forty-five miles from Baltimore on Cheltenham farm, donated for the institution's use by Enoch Pratt. Although the original charter called for admission of children of both sexes, this was later changed in the interest of "good government." The boys were put to work raising hogs and growing vegetables, fruit, corn, oats, wheat, and hay for livestock. Surplus food was sold to offset the operating costs of the institution.

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Room 1: Immigrants in Maryland
Room 2: Evangelical Religion and Reform
Room 3: Rowdies and Riots
Room 4: Changes in the Land
Exhibit Home Page
CONTENTS: Room 2
9. House of Refuge
10. Almshouse
11. House of Reformation and Instruction for Colored Children
12. View of Jone's Falls, Baltimore. Representing the first Baptismal Rites performed there by the Revd. James Osbourn, Septr. 13th 1818
13. Maryland State Bible Society A.D. 1853
14. [The Floating School]