Popular stories from the past such as Charles Dicken’s Oliver Twist and the
familiar 1977 Broadway musical Annie, based on the 1924 comic strip Little
Orphan Annie by Harold Gray, remind us that orphanages were found often in
history, and not in a very positive light. Orphanages were essential
immediately after epidemics such as cholera 1832, diphtheria 1906, typhoid
in 1907, measles in 1912, or influenza 1918.
