Kids today should be glad they weren’t born in the late 1800’s early 1900’s Orphan Trains

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The Orphan Train movement in the United States was an ambitious, sometimes controversial, social welfare effort to relocate orphaned, abandoned, or otherwise homeless children from crowded cities on the East Coast to foster homes in the rural Midwest. Between 1854 and 1929, some 250,000 children were transported to their new homes aboard special trains. As a forerunner of the modern U.S. adoption system, the Orphan Train movement preceded the passage of most federal child protection laws. While many orphan train children were placed with loving and supportive foster parents, some were abused and mistreated. The 1850s were literally “the worst of times” for many children in crowded cities of the American East Coast. Driven by a still-unregulated influx of immigration, epidemics of infectious diseases, and unsafe working conditions, the number of homeless children in New York City alone soared to as many as 30,000, or about 6% of the city’s 500,000 residents. Many orphaned and abandoned children survived on the streets by selling rags and matches while joining gangs as a source of protection. Street-dwelling children, some as young as five years old, were often arrested and placed in jails with hardened adult criminals.

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Once placed in homes, orphan train children were expected to help with farm tasks. While the children were placed free of charge, the adoptive families were obligated to raise them as they would their own children, providing them with healthy food, decent clothing, a basic education, and $100 when they turned 21. Older children who worked in family businesses were to be paid wages. The intent of the orphan train program was not a form of adoption as it is known today, but an early form of foster care through a process then known as “placing out.” the system was not foolproof and not all children ended up in happy homes. Rather than being accepted as family members, some children were abused or treated as little more than itinerant farmworkers. Despite these problems, the orphan trains offered many abandoned children their best chance at a happy life.  In bizarre scenes considered unimaginable today, these orphan train adoption inspections often resembled livestock auctions. Children had their muscles poked and their teeth counted. Some children sang or danced in an effort to attract new mothers and fathers. Infants were most easily placed, while children over 14 and those with visible illnesses or disabilities had more difficulty in finding new homes.

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