The "The Train Stops Here! - Part I" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Paging through our local paper's "Schools" section that is published every Tuesday.  The section includes stories from just about every school in Lancaster County as well as schools in a few neighboring counties.  The final page of the section each week is titled "The Mini Page" and was begun 50 years ago.  The page features puzzles, children's cooks corner, special words to learn, Eco notes and a feature story geared toward education.  Easy to read since it is printed in what appears to be 14 point type and is condensed to make it interesting, but not boring.  My favorite kind of story!  Today's featured story was titled "Orphan Trains".  I read it through several times before I realized this actually happened in the United States, but not in my lifetime.  Wasn't long before I was on my MacBook Air reading more about what I had found in the newspaper.  Seems that the Orphan Train Movement was a supervised welfare program that transported orphaned and homeless 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 and relocated close to 200,000 orphaned, abandoned, abused or homeless children during those 75 years.  Three institutions that existed at the time, Children's Village, Children's Aid Society and New York Founding Hospital, all endeavored to help these children.  The institutions themselves were all supported by wealthy donors and operated by professional staff members.  Many of the homeless, orphaned and abandoned children were from New York City.  It was estimated that in 1850 alone, almost 30,000 came from New York City.  The children were transported to their new homes on trains that were labeled "orphan trains" or "baby trains".  At the end of the 1920s organized foster care began in America which made the orphan trains no longer needed.  So how did these organizations begin years before.  

The Rev. Charles Loring Brace took the
first Orphan Train to Dowagiac, Michigan.

Seems the Children's Aid Society was founded in 1853 when Charles Loring Brace, a young minister,  became concerned with the plight of street children.  During the organizations first year they offered boys religious guidance as well as vocational an academic instruction.  The Society also established the nation's first runaway shelter known as the Newsboys' Lodging House where vagrant boys received inexpensive room and board and basic education.  Rev. Brace became overwhelmed in no time and thus began the idea of sending groups of children to rural area for adoption.  He believed the street children would have better lives by being raised by rural farm families.  His idea was the forerunner of modern foster care.  He dispatched children to farms in Connecticut, Pennsylvania and rural New York and then in 1854 began transporting them to the Midwest by railroad on cars known as the "Orphan Train".  

Children line the windows in the Orphan Train.

The Children's Aid Society referred to its mission as the Emigration Depart- ment, then as the Home-Finding Department and finally as the Department of Foster Care.  The terms "family placement" or "out-placement" were used to refer to orphan train passengers.  The decision as to where each child would be placed was based entirely on where spaces were available at the moment the child needed help.  The very first Orphan Train carried a group of 45 children to Dowagiac, Michigan on October 1, 1854.  

Posters would be posted in cities where the
Orphan Train was to arrive, hoping that
people would volunteer to take a child.

When the train reached Dowagiac a meeting was held where Mr. E.P. Smith, the adult who accompanied the children, told the audience, who gathered around, the farm work the boys could do and the housework the girls could perform.  To receive an orphan child an adult had to have a recommendation from their pastor and a justice of the peace.  Within five days 37 children had been placed.  Mr. Smith took the remaining children to Chicago where they were put on another train to Iowa City to be greeted by the Rev. C.C. Townsend who ran a local orphanage.  He helped find homes for these children.  The first expedition was such as success that three months later another expedition was sent to Pennsylvania.  This continued until 1929 when charities changed their child care support strategies and the need for orphan trains decreased.  Tomorrow I will tell you about a few children who rode on those Orphan Trains.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.