Where have all the children gone?

1. Where have all the children gone? The Orphan Train Solution Beverly Rowls 7th Annual GEAR UP YAL Conference

2. Orphan Trains – What’s That? • Forced migration of over 200,000 children from the New York area to other states • Started in 1854 and lasted until 1929 • The ‘solution’ to homeless, orphaned, abandoned, abused, poor children • The beginning of the foster care system in the United States • An ignored event in U.S. history

3. An inquiry • When is a ‘solution’ NOT a ‘solution’?

4. The Orphan Train Era – Who? • The children: • In the 1850’s, due to massive immigration to the U.S., as many as 30,000 abandoned children lived on the streets of New York City • Infants, children, teens – homeless, hungry, unprotected, unwanted; no education, no medical care; no future • Many turned to crime in order to survive • Throw away children - all they had for protection was each other

5. The children

6. The Orphan Train Era – Who? • The adults • Parent(s) unemployed, ill, addicted, or abusive – unable to support their children • No extended family available • No welfare programs • The leaders • Get those Street Rats off New York streets! • Put them in jails! • Put them in orphanages!

7. Reverend Charles Loring Brace Founder of the Children’s Aid Society (1853) • Worked with the impoverished children on the streets of New York • His solution: remove homeless children from the streets and send them to “Christian” farm families to learn how to become good citizens • Father of the Orphan Train Movement • Philosophy of the Society: self-help, gospel of work, importance of education

8. Improving the lives of the poor

9. Orphan Trains – What? • The “Placing Out” system • Remove the children from New York to relieve the overcrowding and reduce crime • Place them with families in need of laborers • Some found loving families to adopt them • Some were used for slave labor • Some became indentured servants • Trains provided cheap transportation to the places where the children were needed • Large numbers of children could be transported at one time

10. Transporting the children

11. Orphan Trains – Where? • Stopped in over 47 states, Canada and Mexico • States receiving the most children: Illinois, Ohio, Iowa, Missouri and Michigan • States receiving the least number of children: New Mexico, Wyoming, Utah, Alabama and Maine

12. The Orphan Trains – How? • Children placed with good, Anglo-Protestant, rural families • A “screening committee” was formed in every town • Selected possible parents • Being chosen might mean being checked like cattle • Feel muscles • Check teeth • Smile and perform • Foster parents did not have to take siblings

13. Foster parent agreement • Agree to take the child and child had to agree to go • Child must be treated as a member of the family (food, clothes, training) • Parents must provide the local education requirements • Parents required to write annual status report to CAS

14. Positive results from the process • Many would have died if they had stayed in New York • Very little chance for improvement • Very few could gain an education • Many would have been imprisoned • Much potential talent would have been lost

15. Negative results from the process • Not all children were orphans • Children could be removed from ‘unfit’ homes (alcoholic, abusive or Catholic) • All ties with the past were lost • Some children were physically or psychologically abused • Stigma attached to being an orphan • Many thought they were on the only Orphan Train • Most felt that something was wrong with them because their mother gave them away

16. Problems for future generations • Only non-identifying information given to the rider or their descendants • Family research often resulted in dead-ends due to closed or missing records • No family medical history • Could not inherit property of ‘adopted’ family • Those from the Baby Trains had no memories • No birth certificate for obtaining a drivers license, marriage license, pass port or military requirements • Riders often refused to share their story or discuss the past

17. When is a solution Not a solution?