The history of parentless or abandoned children has been intensively researched throughout Europe. The system of institutional care for abandoned children in the Czech lands was similar to the situation in many European countries in the 19th century. The systematic care for “unwanted” babies in the Habsburg Monarchy started in the 1780s, with the establishment of the provincial maternity and foundling hospitals in Vienna, Brno, and Prague. Mothers could give birth for free and leave their babies there. The children born and abandoned in a hospital were cared for by hired nurses, usually in the countryside.

Financial benefits represented the most important motivation for foster families, and primarily, it was the poorer families that endeavoured to get babies from hospitals. Especially the poorer, rural mountainous regions in the Central, South, and East Bohemia were known for a higher number of foundlings cared for by local families.

However, to date, no analytical research focusing on the lives of foundlings outside the hospital walls has been conducted in the Czech Republic. The proposed paper aims to fill the existing research gap in the knowledge about the care for foundlings in foster families. Attention will be paid to the distribution of foster children in the specific mountainous regions (especially the Bohemian-Moravian Highlands, Šumava/ Böhmerwald) as well as to the activities of the local administration. The subsequent microanalyses will allow us to understand the mechanisms of the adoption of foundlings by nurses and their position in the substitute families and society.