Charles Loring Brace

Charles Loring Brace (born June 19, 1826, Litchfield, Conn., U.S.—died Aug. 11, 1890, Campfer, Switz.) was an American reformer and pioneer social-welfare worker, a founder and for 37 years executive secretary of the Children’s Aid Society of New York City.

The descendant of a Hartford family long prominent in religious and political life, Brace was educated at Yale University and at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. Asked to become the head of “a mission to children” in 1853, he spent the remainder of his life in the Children’s Aid Society. In 1872 he wrote an unconsciously autobiographical account of it as The Dangerous Classes of New York, and Twenty Years’ Work Among Them, which established him as a world authority. At his death a leading sociologist estimated that Brace’s influence had aided more than 300,000 children.

In 1882 Brace published Gesta Christi: A History of Humane Progress Under Christianity, a review of “certain practices, principles and ideals . . . that have been either implanted or stimulated or supported by Christianity.” This study became a significant contribution to the literature supporting the growing Social Gospel movement. He also wrote on comparative religion and on European and American travel, knew and corresponded with many of the great figures of his time, and contributed extensively to the New York Times and several journals of opinion and current affairs.

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His daughter Emma Brace edited The Life and Letters of Charles Loring Brace (1894). Upon his death, his son, Charles Loring Brace (1855–1938), became executive secretary of the Children’s Aid Society, holding the position until his retirement in 1928.