cover image Luckiest Orphans

Luckiest Orphans

Hyman Bogen. University of Illinois Press, $39 (283pp) ISBN 978-0-252-01887-9

This rich social history reads like a cross between a Dickens novel and Stephen Birmingham's Our Crowd . From 1860 to its closing in 1941, New York City's Hebrew Orphan Asylum (HOA) was more generously endowed than any other American orphanage; Horatio Alger contributed to its fund-raising efforts by writing a 12-part story that stimulated a flood of subscriptions to the HOA's magazine. A favorite charity of Jewish philanthropists and the predecessor of today's Jewish Child Care Association, throughout its history HOA was marked by the internecine tussles between Sephardim and Ashkenazim, Orthodox and Reform Jews (``Cover your head'' was the battle cry at a late-19th-century HOA banquet). Bogen, president of HOA's alumni association, offers concise sketches of orphans, wardens and trustees, revealing instances of abuse but remaining positive about the institution as a whole. He also relates a few humorous stories (appropriate enough for an organization whose alumni include Art Buchwald), most memorably one about an Irish policeman who, reading a banner backwards, thought the HOA's marching band was from the Ancient Order of Hibernians. Photos not seen by PW . ( Aug. )