Some aspects of childcare in the orphanage of Our Lady of Sorrows in Wrocław (Breslau) in the 18th and the 1st decade of the 19th c.

Abstract

The article presents research on childcare in the orphanage of Our Lady of Sorrows in Wrocław (Breslau). The institution was founded in 1696 by the circle connected with the General Vicariate and until the last quarter of the 18th c. remained under the supervision of the Society of Jesus. The available archival sources, including accounts, inventories, records of children being admitted and leaving, and correspondence with the bishop, made it possible to explore the functioning of the orphanage in the period when it was managed by laymen delegated by the bishop’s administrator. The research concerned the years 1775–1815, when the
supervisor and teacher in the orphanage was Johann Anton Fritsch. The analysis of the surviving documents revealed adjustments made in the orphanage plot and buildings. The arrangements were not only to serve the basic care and Catholic upbringing of the minors, but also to give them a chance of learning, recreation and psychological and physical development, in accordance with modern standards of hygiene. The Catholic orphanage was located within the borders of Wrocław, in the upper part of Szewska Street, at the northern edge of a plot on which during the last decades of the 18th c. and at the beginning of the 19th c. more and more buildings were erected. Its inner yard, however, remained undeveloped and Johann Fritsch made efforts to turn it into a recreation space for children to give them an opportunity to play outdoors. The two-storey house, built at the beginning of the 18th c., had all the rooms necessary to take care of children: bedrooms, an infirmary, a dining room, a kitchen and accommodation for teachers. Fritsch took care to maintain adequate temperature and humidity in all the rooms, especially in children’s bedrooms, which, having been used for about a hundred years, required adjustments and redecoration. The children slept one to a bed. The beds were wooden, with pallets, straw or down pillows and quilts, and linen pillowslips and sheets, though their cleanliness was questionable. Having taken his post, the new teacher tried his best to get them exchanged to higher quality bedlinen. The children and their carers had their meals in aesthetic surroundings; they used tin dishes and table linen. In the 18th c. the kitchen utensils included copper pans and pots, in which simple meals could be prepared. Fritsch equipped the kitchen with some more modern appliances, the most important one being a stove with a hotplate and a set of pots suitable to be used on it. He also took care to improve hygienic facilities. Most probably, a separate room was allocated to do laundry and to store bathing tubs and basins. The children had lessons, until the end of the 18th c probably in the dining room, and later in a special schoolroom, where numerous books and teaching aids were kept. The orphanage records indicate that orphans were well taken care of and that in the first decades of the 19th c. their living conditions were improving. This was possible thanks to the adequate funds provided by the bishop, but also to the Johann Anton Fritsch’s deep awareness of the children’s needs. The work of this highly educated pedagogue and naturalist reflected the social changes characteristic of the turn of the new epoch.