Explore 300 years of New York and American history through the eyes and lives of children of the past!

Learn what there is to do when you visit the DiMenna Children's History Museum.

Programs and activities

for the whole family.

One of the great, and growing, strengths of the department’s collections is records of churches, benevolent societies, educational groups, and art unions that have reached out to New York’s neediest populations and fostered the cultural life of the city over many generations. Within the scope of these organizations are the New York Mariner’s Church, Broadway Tabernacle Church and Society, the Ladies’ Christian Union, the New York Manumission Society, the Colored Orphan Asylum, the Society for the Relief of Poor Widows, the Children’s Aid Society, the New York Foundling Hospital, the Leake & Watts Children’s Home, the Traveler’s Aid Society of New York, the Emergency Shelter, the New-York African Free School, the Public School Society, the Southern Famine Relief Commission, the Artists’ Fund Society, and the American Art Union.

This site on Flickr highlights a selection of images from the historical records of the Children's Aid Society. The charitable organization was founded in New York City in 1853 to aid, educate and provide lodging for poor children in the city, and/or to place them in foster homes or with employers outside of the city. The entire collection has been rehoused and processed and a finding aid, or guide to the collection, can be located here. The select images portray children participating in activities at CAS facilities as well as children leaving on the "Orphan Trains." Some annual reports, personal diaries, intake volumes, broadsides and pamphlets have also been included.
 
Click here to view the full collection.