Orphan Train
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The Orphan Train Movement was a supervised welfare program that transported children from crowded Eastern cities of the United States to foster homes located largely in rural areas of the Midwest. The orphan trains operated between 1854 and 1929, relocating about 200,000 children.[1] The co-founders of the Orphan Train movement claimed that these children were orphaned, abandoned, abused, or homeless, but this was not always true. They were mostly the children of new immigrants and the children of the poor and destitute families living in these cities.[citation needed] Criticisms of the program include ineffective screening of caretakers, insufficient follow-ups on placements, and that many children were used as strictly slave farm labor.[citation needed]
Three charitable institutions, Children's Village (founded 1851 by 24 philanthropists),[2] the Children's Aid Society (established 1853 by Charles Loring Brace) and later, New York Foundling Hospital, endeavored to help these children. The institutions were supported by wealthy donors and operated by professional staff. The three institutions developed a program that placed homeless, orphaned, and abandoned city children, who numbered an estimated 30,000 in New York City alone in the 1850s, in foster homes throughout the country. The children were transported to their new homes on trains that were labeled \"orphan trains\" or \"baby trains\". This relocation of children ended in 1930 due to decreased need for farm labor in the Midwest.[3]
The first orphanage in the United States was reportedly established in 1729 in Natchez, MS,[1] but institutional orphanages were uncommon before the early 19th century. Relatives or neighbors usually raised children who had lost their parents. Arrangements were informal and rarely involved courts.[1]
Around 1830, the number of homeless children in large Eastern cities such as New York City exploded. In 1850, there were an estimated 10,000 to 30,000 homeless children in New York City. At the time, New York City's population was only 500,000.[1] Some children were orphaned when their parents died in epidemics of typhoid, yellow fever or the flu.[1] Others were abandoned due to poverty, illness, or addiction.[1] Many children sold matches, rags, or newspapers to survive.[4] For protection against street violence, they banded together and formed gangs.[4]
The phrase \"orphan train\" was first used in 1854 to describe the transportation of children from their home area via the railroad.[8] However, the term \"Orphan Train\" was not widely used until long after the Orphan Train program had ended.[5]
The Children's Aid Society referred to its relevant division first as the Emigration Department, then as the Home-Finding Department, and finally, as the Department of Foster Care.[5] Later, the New York Foundling Hospital sent out what it called \"baby\" or \"mercy\" trains.[5]
Organizations and families generally used the terms \"family placement\" or \"out-placement\" (\"out\" to distinguish it from the placement of children \"in\" orphanages or asylums) to refer to orphan train passengers.[5]
In an account of the trip published by the Children's Aid Society, Smith said that in order to get a child, applicants had to have recommendations from their pastor and a justice of the peace, but it is unlikely that this requirement was strictly enforced.[5] By the end of that first day, fifteen boys and girls had been placed with local families. Five days later, twenty-two more children had been adopted. Smith and the remaining eight children traveled to Chicago where Smith put them on a train to Iowa City by themselves where a Reverend C. C. Townsend, who ran a local orphanage, took them in and attempted to find them foster families.[5] This first expedition was considered such a success that in January 1855 the society sent out two more parties of homeless children to Pennsylvania.[5]
Committees of prominent local citizens were organized in the towns where orphan trains stopped. These committees were responsible for arranging a site for the adoptions, publicizing the event, and arranging lodging for the orphan train group. These committees were also required to consult with the Children's Aid Society on the suitability of local families interested in adopting children.[9]
Brace's system put its faith in the kindness of strangers.[10] Orphan train children were placed in homes for free and were expected to serve as an extra pair of hands to help with chores around the farm.[6] Families expected to raise them as they would their natural-born children, providing them with decent food and clothing, a \"common\" education, and $100 when they turned twenty-one.[5] Older children placed by The Children's Aid Society were supposed to be paid for their labors.[6] Legal adoption was not required.[10]
According to the Children's Aid Society's \"Terms on Which Boys are Placed in Homes,\" boys under twelve were to be \"treated by the applicants as one of their own children in matters of schooling, clothing, and training,\" and boys twelve to fifteen were to be \"sent to a school a part of each year.\"[11] Representatives from the society were supposed to visit each family once a year to check conditions, and children were expected to write letters back to the society twice a year.[11] There were only a handful of agents to monitor thousands of placements.[10]
Before they boarded the train, children were dressed in new clothing, given a Bible, and placed in the care of Children's Aid Society agents who accompanied them west.[1] Few children understood what was happening. Once they did, their reactions ranged from delight at finding a new family to anger and resentment at being '' placed out'' when they had relatives ''back home.''[1]
Most children on the trains were white. An attempt was made to place non-English speakers with people who spoke their language.[1] German-speaking Bill Landkamer rode an orphan train several times as a preschooler in the 1920s before being accepted by a German family in Nebraska.[1]
Babies were easiest to place, but finding homes for children older than 14 was always difficult because of concern that they were too set in their ways or might have bad habits.[1] Children who were physically or mentally disabled or sickly were difficult to find homes for.[1] Although many siblings were sent out together on orphan trains, prospective parents could choose to take a single child, separating siblings.[12]
Many orphan train children went to live with families that placed orders specifying age, gender, and hair and eye color.[13] Others were paraded from the depot into a local playhouse, where they were put up on stage, thus the origin of the term \"up for adoption.\"[11] According to an exhibit panel from the National Orphan Train Complex, the children \"took turns giving their names, singing a little ditty, or 'saying a piece.\"[11] According to Sara Jane Richter, professor of history at Oklahoma Panhandle State University, the children often had unpleasant experiences. \"People came along and prodded them, and looked, and felt, and saw how many teeth they had.\"[11]
Brace raised money for the program through his writings and speeches. Wealthy people occasionally sponsored trainloads of children.[1] Charlotte Augusta Gibbs, wife of John Jacob Astor III, had sent 1,113 children west on the trains by 1884.[8] Railroads gave discount fares to the children and the agents who cared for them.[1]
The Children's Aid Society's sent an average of 3,000 children via train each year from 1855 to 1875.[1] Orphan trains were sent to 45 states, as well as Canada and Mexico. During the early years, Indiana received the largest number of children.[6] At the beginning of the Children's Aid Society orphan train program, children were not sent to the southern states, as Brace was an ardent abolitionist.[12]
Orphan train children faced obstacles ranging from the prejudice of classmates because they were ''train children'' to feeling like outsiders in their families all their lives.[1] Many rural people viewed the orphan train children with suspicion, as incorrigible offspring of drunkards and prostitutes.[10]
Criticisms of the orphan train movement focused on concerns that initial placements were made hastily, without proper investigation, and that there was an insufficient follow-up on placements. Charities were also criticized for not keeping track of children placed while under their care.[8] In 1883, Brace consented to an independent investigation. It found the local committees were ineffective at screening foster parents. The supervision was lax. Many older boys had run away. But its overall conclusion was positive. The majority of children under fourteen were leading satisfactory lives.[10]
Some placement locations charged that orphan trains were dumping undesirable children from the East on Western communities.[8] In 1874, the National Prison Reform Congress charged that these practices resulted in increased correctional expenses in the West.[8]
One of the many children who rode the train was Lee Nailing. Lee's mother died of sickness; after her death, Lee's father could not afford to keep his children.[citation needed]Another orphan train child was named Alice Ayler. Alice rode the train because her single mother could not provide for her children; before the journey, they lived off of \"berries\" and \"green water.\"[citation needed]
Catholic clergy maintained that some charities were deliberately placing Catholic children in Protestant homes to change their religious practices.[8] The Society for the Protection of Destitute Roman Catholic Children in the City of New York (known as the Protectory) was founded in 1863. The Protectory ran orphanages and place out programs for Catholic youth in response to Brace's Protestant-centered program.[17] Similar charges of conversion via adoption were made concerning the placement of Jewish children.[8]
Not all orphan train children were true orphans, but were made into orphans by forced removal from their biological families to be placed out in other states.[8] Some claimed this was a deliberate pattern intended to break up immigrant Catholic families.[8] Some abolitionists opposed placements of children with Western families, viewing indentureship as a form of slavery.[8] 59ce067264