Many 18th-century households included not only relatives and slaves, but also indentured servants, people sold into bondage for a specified length of time.

Modern-day DNA research is beginning to unlock longstanding mysteries regarding orphans.

The debate over welfare goes back surprisingly far.

Little Orphan Annie is the latest in a sequence of pop culture foundlings, but America’s orphans of the Great Depression weren’t endearing at all.

Brandeis University researcher Hilda Kahne argued for a more thoughtful approach to part-time jobs in a 1994 issue of Social Service Review