Can You Tell Me Anything About the Orphan Trains?

Question

I'm fascinated to know what went on back in those days

Answer 1

You have gotten a lot of good information, and of course you can google it yourself, so I won't add too much of that.

What kind of struck me as strange, though, is that the organization that ran these is still in around and is actually promoting itself with the orphan train connection; they buy advertising from Google to have a sponsor link when anyone searches for orphan train:  

http://www.childrensaidsociety.org/orpha...

Now looking at their website they seem to do a lot of good these days, including advocating and providing assistance to low income families, including many programs to help families find assistance and to keep children in their homes and out of foster care. This is great! But the orphan trains? Well, a very mixed bag. They themselves say: "Children’s Aid founder Charles Loring Brace established the Orphan Train Movement in response to an epidemic of homeless children. This approach, which moved children from New York City streets to the homes of farm families out West, has been deemed the beginning of the modern foster care system." And on their page talking abou the orphan trains themselves:

(http://www.childrensaidsociety.org/about...

they say: "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 weren't always well kept, some of the children placed in the West went on to great successes. "

Gotta go, more later maybe, meantime:

Here is a heartbreaking song about them by a friend/acquaintance of mine:

RIDER ON AN ORPHAN TRAIN

(David Massengill)

Once I rode an orphan train,

And my brother did the same.

They split us up in Missouri.

James was five and I was three.

He got taken by some pair,

But for me they did not care.

We were brave and did not cry

When they made us say goodbye.

That was the last I saw of him

Before some family took me in,

But I swore I'd run away

And find my brother James some day.

I went back when I was grown

To see how old the Children's Home (sic),

And I asked for to see my file

Of when I was an orphan child.

It's sad, they say, there's been a flood.

File washed away in Missouri mud.

Sometimes life is a stone wall.

You either climb or else you fall.

In every time on every street,

All the faces that I meet,

And I wonder could one be

My brother James come back to me?

Though I don't know where he's gone,

I have searched my whole life long.

Now I roam from town to town

But there's no orphan lost-and-found.

Sometimes I dream a pleasant sight:

My brother James and I unite.

Remembering our last goodbye,

No longer brave, we start to cry.

I hope he lives a life of ease,

All his days a soft warm breeze.

May he sit upon a throne,

And may he never sleep alone.

(Repeat first verse.)

From David Massengill, "The Return," Plump Records 5903-2.

Copyright 1995 AGF Music Ltd/David Massengill Music ASCAP.

Answer 2

Wow we had to study this in social welfare to be a social worker.  That was a long time ago.  From what i remeber basically kids were put on the trains and taken away from the cities because one their parents could barley afford to feed them or they were actually orphans. They went to farming families and many siblings were  split up.  The idea was that they would have more to eat beacause back then (during the depression) they were better off.

These were the first foster families in the US and the beging of the end of orphanges , work houses and indentured servetude for kids.

Answer 3

My grandmother's best friend was on one of those Orphan Trains.  Nothing short of slavery for her.  She eventually ran away.  She never found any of her 12 brothers and sisters (parents may have died in an epidemic) because they deliberately split them up so that they weren't 'dependent' on each other.  Some were actually pretty lucky to find good homes, but because they were never adopted, they were SOL when their 'parents' died.

Answer 4

They were run by the Children's Aid Society from aronud 1850 to 1929 from New York and helped children between 6-18 years old. Something in the neighborhood of 120,000 children found homeless were taken by train and placed into families around the country mostly in the west.

The children were placed for their benifit and as Extra hands for the farms out west.

Answer 5

i borrowed a dvd from the local library called the orphan train in michigan 1854-1927, it was intersting. you should go to the library and see what you can come up with. even though theres a great deal of info available via the internet, there are still many great resources at the library. good luck to you.