They were "throwaway" kids, living on the streets or in orphanages and foster homes. Then Charles Loring Brace, a young minister in New York City, started the Children's Aid Society and devised a plan to give these homeless waifs a chance at finding families they could call their own. Thus began an extraordinary migration of American children. Between 1854 and 1929, an estimated 200,000 children ventured forth on a journey of hope. Here, in the sequel to Orphan Train Rider: One Boy's True Story, Andrea Warren introduces nine men and women who rode the trains and helped make history so many years ago.
Discusses the placement of over 200,000 orphaned or abandoned children in homes throughout the Midwest from 1854 to 1929 by recounting the story of one boy and his brothers.
"Describes the people and events involved in the orphan trains. The reader's choices reveal the historical details from the perspectives of a New York City newsboy, a child trying to keep his siblings together, and a child sent west on the baby trains"--Provided by publisher.
Tells the story of the orphan trains that were operated by the Children's Aid Society between 1854 and 1929, taking abandoned children from New York to homes in the Midwest and West; and discusses the life and motivation of young minister Charles Loring Brace, founder of the society.
"From 1850 to 1930 America witnessed a unique emigration and resettlement of at least 200,000 children and several thousand adults, primarily from the East Coast to the West. This 'placing out,' an attempt to find homes for the urban poor, was best known by the 'orphan trains' that carried the children. Holt carefully analyzes the system, initially instituted by the New York Children's Aid Society in 1853, tracking its imitators as well as the reasons for its creation and demise. She captures the children's perspective with the judicious use of oral histories, institutional records, and newspaper accounts. This well-written volume sheds new light on the multifaceted experience of children's immigration, changing concepts of welfare, and Western expansion. It is good, scholarly social history."—Library Journal
It seems incomprehensible that there was a time in America s not-so-distant past that nearly 200,000 children could be loaded on trains in large cities on our East Coast, sent to the rural Midwest, and presented for the picking to anyone who expressed an interest in them. That's exactly what happened between the years 1854 and 1930. The primitive social experiment became known as placing out, and had its origins in a New York City organization founded by Charles Loring Brace called the Children's Aid Society. The Society gathered up orphans, half-orphans, and abandoned children from streets and orphanages, and placed them on what are now referred to as Orphan Trains. It was Brace s belief that there was always room for one more at a farmer s table. The stories of the individual children involved in this great migration of little emigrants have nearly all been lost in the attic of American history. In this book, the author tells the true story of his paternal grandmother, the late Emily (Reese) Kidder, who, at the tender age of fourteen, became one of the aforementioned children who rode an Orphan Train. In 1906, Emily was plucked from the Elizabeth Home for Girls, operated by the Children's Aid Society, and placed on a train, along with eight other children, bound for Hopkinton, Iowa. Emily s journey, as it turned out, was only just beginning. Life had many lessons in store for her lessons that would involve overcoming adversity, of perseverance, love, and great loss. Emily's story is told through the use of primary material, oral history, interviews, and historical photographs. It is a tribute to the human spirit of an extraordinary young girl who became a woman a woman to whom the heartfelt phrase there s no place like home, had a very profound meaning.
Provides the story of the Holocaust survivor who at fifteen was placed in a Nazi concentration camp and was forced to overcome intolerable conditions in order to not become a victim of Hitler's Final Solution.
Describes the orphan train movement through the eyes of one small child who yearns to know her "real" mother, survives a tortured childhood, when she encountered whippings and sexual abuse, and ultimately, as an adult, comes to terms with her past, her faith, and herself.
