Orphan Trains Research Paper

Emilie Carr

Dr. McMillan

CASTU401-02

6 September 2017

Essay 1: The Orphan Trains

The Orphan Trains were trains that took orphaned children from New York, a lot of whom were immigrants, and transported them to foster families all around rural America so that they would be off the streets and could live better lives. Some of the children that were brought onto the trains were not orphans, but were children who lived in extreme poverty as their parents were not able to properly care and provide for them.

This initiative began in 1853 by the Children’s Aid Society, a private, child welfare nonprofit in New York City, formed by Charles Loring Brace. Brace saw the Orphan Trains as a solution because of the number of children who were living

on the streets and this was a way to help the children to find families and live under better circumstances. There were 10,000 homeless children in New York in the 1850s and approximately 1,000 immigrants coming into New York per day. These children were beggars and a lot of the girls were prostitutes; the children were referred to as “Street Arabs” for their wandering. The problem was so prodigious that police had started arresting children on the streets, as young as five years of age, and putting them in the same cells as adults.
The Orphan Trains came about as a resolution to this plight, and although it may not have been the best solution in the way that things were done, it was a lot better than the experiences that the children had endured prior.

Their journey west generally took about three to four days and the agents, who were relocating the children, comforted them by singing to them and giving them hand bibles. A lot of brothers and sisters were separated during relocation because they would not all go to the same state, and if they did go to the same state, the foster families would not take in all of them. For children, or anyone for that matter, abandoning somewhere that you know of as home, as well as abandoning your family (if you were not orphaned), has the potential to be traumatizing, and is extremely scary. Even so, the agents comforting them most likely had an immensely positive impact during their journey. When they arrived to the different rural states, they would stand on a stage in front of families where the families would decide which child they wanted based on their appearance and their temperament. This could also be viewed as traumatizing due to children being examined by people that they don’t know and potentially feeling unwanted and not good

enough.
However, regardless of the imaginably traumatizing events, the Orphan Trains accomplished a lot in terms of protecting the children. They provided the children with families who provided homes, food, clothes, education, work, and, in most cases, love. The things provided by these families in turn could have led to better forms of attachment and a support system, which promotes resiliency and helps children to work toward recovering from their trauma and can also help them to avoid future mental illness.