ORPHAN TRAINS

ORPHAN TRAINS. Between 1858 and 1929 an estimated twenty-five homeless children from the streets of New York or the Children's Village (then known as the New York Juvenile Asylum), what is now the New York Foundling Hospital, and the former Orphan Asylum Society of the City of New York, which is now the Graham-Windham Home for Children found a new home in Dubuque. (1) They came by way of the "Orphan Train," a pioneering initiative which led to child welfare reforms, including child labor laws, adoption and the establishment of foster care services, public education, the provision of health care and nutrition and vocational training. (2)

In the 1850s, an estimated 30,000 children known as "street Arabs" were homeless in New York City. (3) Ranging in age from about six to eighteen, they lived in New York City's streets and slums with little or no hope of a successful future. Charles Loring Brace, the founder of The Children's Aid Society, believed that there was a way to change the futures of these children. By removing youngsters from the poverty and crime of the city streets and placing them in morally upright farm families, he thought they would have a chance of escaping a lifetime of suffering. (4)

Rev. Loring Brace proposed that homeless children could be sent by train to live and work on farms. They would be placed in homes for free, but they would serve as an extra pair of hands to help with chores. They would not be indentured. Older children were to be paid for their labors. (5) In 1853, Rev. Brace founded the Children's Aid Society to arrange the trips, raise the money, and obtain the legal permissions needed for relocation. (6)

Many agencies nationwide placed children on trains to go to foster homes. Orphan Trains stopped at more than forty-five states across the country as well as Canada and Mexico. During the early years, Indiana received the largest number of children. (7) From 1854 until 1929 an estimated more than 120,000 children were placed. (8) Between 1858 and 1910, a total of 6,675 children found new homes in Iowa. (9) Generally smaller towns were chosen for the children, but cities like Cedar Rapids and Dubuque are believed to each have become the homes of as many as twenty-five. (10)

Placement into new families was casual at best. Handbills announced the arrival of the needy children. As the trains pulled into towns, the youngsters were cleaned up and paraded before crowds of "prospective parents." (11) In later years, "parents" wrote to the New York agencies requesting a certain sex, age, hair and eye color. (12) Some of the children struggled in their new surroundings. Children could live with a family for several months and then be sent back to the orphanage. (13) Others went on to lead normal lives. Although records were not always well kept, some of the children placed in the West went on to great successes. There were two governors, one congressman, one sheriff, two district attorneys, three county commissioners as well as numerous bankers, lawyers, physicians, journalists, ministers, teachers and businessmen. (14)

In later years, children who thought their "parents" were their biological parents often found themselves with nothing after their "parents" had died. These and others often had no idea where they were born or their names. Children in the 1800s in New York could be left at a church with no questions being asked. In other instances, a child might have only their first name pinned to their blanket.

Few of the actual orphans who were involved in the train remained alive in 2014. Their descendants, however, could number in the millions. For them the internet proven a useful tool to find their heritage. Among other sites useful have been The National Orphan Train Complex: http://orphantraindepot.org/ and the Louisiana Orphan Train Museum: http://www.laorphantrain.com/

See: Riders on the Orphan Train

    http://youtu.be/kexzcq8cXto

    Orphan Train: Largest Child Migration

    http://youtube.com/watch?v=G2nqLt5YGls

    Orphan Trains   

    http://youtube.com/watch?v=cWTTcNBfaRw

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Source:

1. Kidder, Clark and Krantz, Colleen Bradford. "West By Orphan Train," Iowa Public Television presentation, December 1, 2014

2. "The Orphan Trains," The Children's Aid Society," Online: http://www.childrensaidsociety.org/about/history/orphan-trains

3. "The Orphan Trains," An American Experience, Online: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/orphan/

4. Children's Aid Society.

5. Ibid.

6. An American Experience

7. Children's Aid Society

8. Ibid.

9. Kidder et. al.

10. Ibid.

11. An American Experience

12. Kidder, et. al.

13. Ibid.

14. Children's Aid Society