Wiltwyck School for Boys

Abstract Founded in the 1940s by Family Court Judge Justine Wise Polier with the help of Eleanor Roosevelt, Wiltwyck School for Boys was created as a therapeutic community with an emphasis on family support and education for Black youth adjudicated as juvenile delinquents who were being denied admission to other treatment centers based on their race. Polier started Wiltwyck to avoid sending these kids to grim lockup facilities. In 1963, Wiltwyck hired Nan Dale as a childcare worker at its halfway house in New York City. Twenty years later, Dale was made executive director and brought in to try to save Wiltwyck from bankruptcy but the school was forced to close. It was a wrenching experience for everyone involved, but especially for the kids who lived there. To them closing meant feeling disposable, unwanted and unloved. The bust of Eleanor Roosevelt that adorned the reception room now sits in Dale’s living room, reminding her of what happened all those years ago.