-Introduction
-Chapter 1 The City Streets
-Chapter 2 Orphans and Orphanages
-Chapter 3 Drifters in the City Streets
-Chapter 4 Games, Gangs, Hideouts, and Caves
-Chapter 5 Juvenile Delinquents and the House of Refuge
-Chapter 6 Child Savers and St. Louis Newsboys
Chapter One describes the streets of St. Louis in the nineteenth century. This is a time when thousands of boys were wandering in and out of the city, "struggling to grow up on their own or with little help from adults." In chapter two deals with orphans and the efforts of those who tried to help them. Religious organizations did a large amount of work to shelter these children, as did some orphanages in the city. Many of the boys at these homes were being indentured at a young age and many of them were overworked. Chapter three touches on the different gangs of young boys in the city that began life as petty thieves and many continued this criminality into adulthood. This was in many cases by necessity and not by choice, and chapter four deals with how these young boys passed many hours a day together standing on street corners or playing in abandoned buildings. Some of these boys even took shelter in the natural caves below St. Louis. In chapter five Stepenoff deals with places like the House of Refuge and other attempts to house and educate these "dead end kids." Chapter six is very similar to the previous chapter in that it deals with another organization, Father Dunne's Newsboys' Home and Protectorate, that had religious roots and sought to care for and educate these young children. Below I've included some photos of children associated with Father Dunne's Newsboys' Home.
The boys at Father Dunne's press room learning a trade.
This is my favorite picture of all of them.^
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