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New York City, May 1908. "Children's Aid Society." A tottering array of tots. 8x10 glass negative, George Grantham Bain Collection. View full size.
I think I know what became of these kids.
They are (almost) all trying to do their very best to sit still for the camera. The little one holding the ball is particularly sweet. I'd like to adopt them all, but since they were all of my grandmother's generation, they would have had to adopt me instead.
Apparently one of the commandments was to hold still or you'll topple over and split your wee head open on the piano, or the very hard wooden floor. Good grief, that bench is high for those shrimpy little legs. And isn't it interesting that you can kind of tell the boys from the girls despite the baby dresses.
"Tottering" is the right term, by golly. These tiny babies were simply balanced on this too tall bench to wing it on their own, and if they did fall, they would land on their sweet little faces. In fact that third baby from the right looks like he was so poor, he didn't even have a face. In many old photos one can see that little boys wore dresses, sometimes until they actually started school. I guess everything old is new again, huh? Cute photo but it is obvious that some are boys and some are girls and some are of unknown sexuality. Very poignant.
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