Reverend Charles Loring Brace (19 June 1826–11 August 1890)

American philanthropist, congregational minister and child welfare advocate. Brace was born on in Litchfield, Connecticut. He was home-schooled by his father until 1842 when he entered Yale University. He graduated from Yale in 1846 and went on to enrol in the Yale Divinity School but left to study at Union Theological Seminary from which he graduated in 1849. In the same year he was ordained as a Congregational minister. Brace was an outspoken abolitionist and supporter of an anti-eugenics movement. He reportedly read Darwin's On the Origin of Specie thirteen times. On August 21, 1854 he married Letitia Neill in Belfast, Ireland. Brace became concerned for the plight of street children in New York and founded the New York Children’s Aid Society in 1853. He was chosen to be the chief officer of the new organization, a position he held until his death in 1890 of Brights Disease.