How Philadelphia took care of its own through history

The Orphan Society was formed by a committee of wealthy Philadelphia women, notably Sarah Ralston and Rebecca Gratz, who each took the role of social reformer very seriously.

Gratz, the daughter of a wealthy Jewish merchant, also formed the Female Association for the Relief of Women and Children in Reduced Circumstances, the Female Hebrew Benevolent Society, and the Hebrew Sunday School. Gratz College in Elkins Park is named after her.

“She never married,” Barnes said. “She did things like put her money and her time toward doing that kind of public service.”

Ralston, the daughter of onetime Philadelphia mayor Matthew Clarkson, also formed the Indigent Widows and Single Women’s Society, which ultimately became the Sarah Ralston Foundation supporting elder care in Philadelphia. The historic mansion she built to house indigent widows still stands on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania, which is now its chief occupant.

Women like Ralston and Gratz were part of the 19th-century Reform Movement that sought to undo some of the inhumane conditions brought about by the rapid industrialization of cities. Huge numbers of people from rural America and foreign countries came into urban cities for factory work, and many fell into poverty, alcoholism, and prostitution.

“These are not new problems, but on a much larger scale than they ever were,” Barnes said. “It was just kind of in the zeitgeist in the mid- and later-1800s to say, ‘We’ve got to address all these problems.”

The reform organizations could be highly selective and impose a heavy dose of 19th-century moralism. The Indigent Widows and Single Women’s Society, for example, only selected white women from upper-class backgrounds whose fortunes had turned, rejecting women who were in poor health, “fiery-tempered,” or in one case, simply “ordinary.”