Minnesota State School Orphanage What I learned while at The Minnesota State School Orphanage is that it was open from 1886 to 1945 & during those 59 years, it was a home to around 10,635 of the ages 3 to 14 years old who were abandoned or abused. The main goal of the orphanage was to educate the children, find them adoptive homes or to be able to support themselves by the time they were old enough to leave. Things they were educated on while there were moral & religious training, cooking & sewing for girls & farming & woodworking for boys. All of the children housed at the orphanage had chores to do & if those duties were not fulfilled, the children would be placed in “The Chair” to sit & think about what they did & to keep them in line. They were also beaten & sometimes to the point of death. A tool used for the beating was a radiator brush. Another common cause of death at the orphanage was lack of love & affection. Not being in a family setting was very difficult for the smaller children & led to an early death. Out of the 10,635 children who lived there throughout the years, only 198 students died & are buried in the cemetery on The State School grounds. While I was at the museum, there were photo scanned copies of letters children would write to their parents, asking to come visit them. I hadn’t realized that the children didn’t understand that their parents didn’t want them. It was heartbreaking. I didn’t get to view Cottage 11 while I was there which was a
