Broken: Memories of Familial Separation at the Foundling Hospital in the 18th and 19th Centuries

     In the middle of the eighteenth century, beginning in the year 1741, the Foundling Hospital first began accepting deserted infants. These infants were usually given up either due to the shame of raising an illegitimate child, widowhood, issues related to poverty where parents, or just the mother alone, simply could not afford a child given their station, or a mixture of the aforementioned (Styles 4-6). This exhibit with its various items seeks to piece together a profile of the mothers of these infants, the world they lived in, and the circumstances that led them to make the decision to give up their young children. Themes of lost love, deception, and issues of social class, plague the heartbreaking narrative that surrounds the Foundling Hospital, and therefore each item in this exhibit makes the tragic separation of mother and young child visible and tangible.