Agenda - 10-03-2017 - 4-a - Endorsement of Proposed National Register of Historic Places Nomination for the Efland Home (NC Industrial Home for Colored Girls)

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16 NPS Form 10-900-a OMB Approval No.1024-0018 (8-86) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section number 8 Page 18 North Carolina Industrial Home for Colored Girls Orange County,NC Social welfare experts promoted the idea that domestic-scale group residences benefited indigent youth at the first annual White House Conference on the Care of Dependent Children, convened by President Theodore Roosevelt in Washington,D. C., on January 25, 1909. Attendees included African American educator Booker T. Washington,who headed Tuskegee Institute in Alabama; Jane Addams,who in 1889 founded the Chicago social settlement Hull House;journalist and photographer Jacob Riis; and nurse and humanitarian Lillian Wald. Although these and other reformers favored adoption and home boarding over institutional care for destitute children,the group's recommendations to improve orphanage conditions included construction of cottages to be administered by house parents. A cottage atmosphere allowed for more personalized attention with the goal of fostering well-adjusted and productive individuals.41 The North Carolina State Board of Charities and Public Welfare (NCSBCPW), created in 1917, endorsed the cottage system as the ideal arrangement for institutions dedicated to child care. In this model, modest-sized buildings provided sleeping quarters for twenty to thirty youth and their caretakers, recreational areas, kitchens, dining rooms, and bathrooms. The cottages' small scale was intended to promote a nurturing domestic atmosphere. The board also encouraged the hiring of a home economics teacher and a physical education director at each institution.42 NCSBCPW,which expanded the purview of the Board of Public Charities, had five bureaus: county organization, institutional supervision, child welfare,mental health and hygiene, and promotion and publicity. The Public Welfare Act of 1917 allowed for the creation of county boards of public welfare, which facilitated the state agency's mission. Two years later, additional legislation made county boards mandatory. NCSBCPW evaluated public and privately funded entities that cared for under- privileged children annually to ensure that the facilities offered residents adequate accommodation, education, and supervision.43 Stonewall Jackson Training School (NR 1984)near Concord in Cabarrus County was North Carolina's first completely state-subsidized institution established to rehabilitate delinquent children. The General Assembly allocated construction and operation funds in 1907. Two years later,the facility commenced serving white boys younger than sixteen committed to residency by the juvenile court system. The children lived in small cottages with matrons and teachers and received academic instruction up to the eighth-grade level as well as vocational training in carpentry,printing, and 41 John E.B.Myers,Child Protection in America:Past, Present, and Future(New York: Oxford University Press, 2006),58-59;Matthew A.Crenson,Building the Invisible Orphanage:A Prehistory of the American Welfare System (Cambridge,M.A.;Harvard University Press, 1998), 11-12. 42 NCSBCPW,Biennial Report of the NCSBCPW, 1920-1922,22. 43 University of North Carolina Extension Division,Public Welfare and the Community,Vol.IV,No. 10(Chapel Hill:University of North Carolina Press, 1925), 10-11, 16-17.