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 were homeless in New York City. 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. (3)

Loring 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 placed by The Children's Aid Society were to be paid for their labors. (4)

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. (5) From 1853 until 1929 an estimated more than 120,000 children were placed. (6) Between 1858 and 1910, a total of 6,675 children found new homes in Iowa. (7) 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. (8)

Some of the children struggled in their newfound surroundings, while many others went on to lead simple, very normal lives, raising their families and working towards the American dream. 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. (9)

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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. Ibid.

4. Ibid.

5. Ibid.

6. Ibid.

7. Kidder et. al

8. Ibid.

9. "The Orphan Train."