This chapter surveys the origins of foster care in earlier methods for supporting dependent children dating back to the colonial period, including indenture, orphanages, “placing out” (also known as orphan trains), boarding out, and adoption. It attends to the racial and religious aspects of these systems and to the relationship between private and public systems of child welfare. The chapter also discusses the importance of the professionalization of the child welfare field in the early twentieth century, particularly the creation of the US Children’s Bureau and the Child Welfare League of America.
