Wendinger:  “They all have a great legacy that they have passed on to American culture and life. Life in New York City, especially in the late 1800's, was chaotic. This was a time of great influx of immigrants coming into New York, which happened to be one of our largest ports. And New York actually did not know what to do with the overflow of population. And many of the immigrants coming into New York City found hardships equal to the ones that they thought they left behind, their suffering actually extended on to their children.”

In 1849, New York City's chief of police decided to sound an alarm about what he described as, the constantly increasing number of vagrant, idle and vicious children of both sexes who infest our public thoroughfares, hotels and docks. A New York State Commission filed this report in response. The great mass of poor houses are most disgraceful memorials of the public charity. Common domestic animals are usually more humanely provided for than the paupers in some of these institutions.