Human Capital Acquisition in Families and Institutions

University Of Toledo, Toledo OH

Investigators

Abstract

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This study will exam ne the educational prospects of and actual learning by children resident in the oldest municipal orphanage in the United States, the Charleston Orphan House. While a residential facility, the Orphan House was not intended to house children from entrance until maturity. Responsible adults legally bound children to the Orphan House, where they lived until they were again legally bound to local masters or mistresses. The indenture document that bound a child was initially endorsed by the child, his or her parent(s) or guardian, and orphanage officials. Persons who were unable to write their name endorsed the document by marking with an X. Based on these signatures and marks, average age when the child began to write can be estimated, and strength of various influences upon literacy acquisition can be assessed. Among these potential influences are age, sex, place of residence, and relation to and literacy of the responsible adult. When the child was to leave the orphanage, he or she signed or marked the same indenture document, as did his or her new master and orphanage officials. The effectiveness of literacy training by the orphanage relative to literacy skills of entering children can be studied through comparison of child literacy at entrance and upon leaving the Orphan House. Another source of human capital acquisition besides the family and the orphanage was the master to whom an orphan was bound. Promises in the indenture contracts to provide formal or informal education and skill training will be examined to determine incidence and quality of the child's further acquisition of human capital. Both the sources of literacy and its effects on the later lives of these children can be studied with the present longitudinal-type data. Since the surviving records cover the span 1790/1860, changes in these patterns over time can be detected, leading to a more complete view of how the well being of institutionalized children changed over this time.