A Grand Tour to “The Home Among the Flowers” —The Origins of Child Emigration and Institutionalization Models in Mid-19th Century America and Early 20th Century Britain

This paper explores the origins and diffusion of child emigration and institutionalisation models in mid‑19th-century America and early‑20th-century Britain through the experiences of two influential philanthropists: Charles Loring Brace and Kingsley Fairbridge. Drawing on Brace's 1850 European “Grand Tour” to Germany and Fairbridge’s 1903 journey from Southern Rhodesia to London, it examines how their encounters with reform institutions like Rauhe Haus and the Inner Mission inspired distinct emigration schemes. Brace’s American Children’s Aid Society initiated “orphan trains,” placing children in rural Protestant foster homes based on Christian family values. Conversely, Fairbridge founded farm schools in Australia under the Child Emigration Society, combining agricultural training with imperial settlement. Both schemes reflected a shared idealisation of countryside environments as corrective spaces for urban poverty, yet diverged in motives: Brace’s rooted in religious and social reform, and Fairbridge’s in colonial population strategy. Through comparative historical analysis, the paper highlights the transatlantic flow of reform ideas and situates child emigration within broader social welfare and imperial networks.