Orphan Trains

this episode of the history guy brought to you by nordpass the first half of the 19th century represented a huge trend in urbanization and immigration into the united states between 1800 and 1850 the population of new york increased 800 percent the population of boston increased 500 percent the population of philadelphia tripled that process of urbanization largely different by the technology of the industrial revolution brought with it many new challenges among them the proliferation of orphans and runaways on the crowded fetid streets of the nation's new growing cities one man stepped up to try to address the problem with a controversial but well-meaning idea that would eventually affect more than a quarter million orphans and help to define the character of the new growing nation in his history that deserves to be remembered i don't know about you but about my least favorite three words in the english language these days is forgot your password it seems like i am always having to 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get 50 off a one year nordpass premium plan the deal is only available for a limited time keep your passwords safe and organized nordpass allows you to keep all your passwords in a single secure place that you can access with just one password it will even help you generate safe passwords so that you don't have to try to use one that you can remember or reuse passwords unlike the password keepers that come with most phones it has both a desktop and a user-friendly mobile app it's simple to set up and it fills informs with a single click it will even do automatic check-ups of your password hell to fix weaker stale passwords so it is both super secure and super easy to use so protect your passwords from pirates and take advantage of this special limited time offer by going to nordpass.com history guy and using the code history guide to get 50 percent off a one-year nordpass premium plan because your passwords deserved to be remembered the main driver for the massive increase in homeless children was poverty immigrants often had little or no money and only belongings that they could carry with them the porous lived in crowded tenements with no plumbing and abysmal sanitation death was common in the deplorable conditions and children often worked in the same factories as their families the children and parents both faced serious discrimination for their nationalities and cultures abandoned or orphaned children were at the mercies of the city private orphanages were rare before the 19th century and those that existed were picky about admission usually discriminating based on race ethnicity or religion and had harsh discipline systems even then the orphanages were too few to deal with the volume of children most of whom turned to gangs crime or prostitution as the only opportunities available some worked for what money they could perhaps most famously as paperboys shouting extra from street corners the exact numbers of homeless children is difficult to pin down but by 1850 there were an estimated 10 to 30 000 in new york city alone there were no food stamps or aid programs so it was up to philanthropists to do something about it in 1853 charles loring brace began an ambitious plan to help new york city's poor grace was studying to be a minister was serving the poor of the city at a mission in the five points neighborhood the neighborhood was one of the poorest in the city and was infamous as a densely populated disease and crime-ridden sloan here brace saw the plight of new york's street children first hand at dusk i found a girl on the 6th street begging 9 years old without a bonnet barefooted and thin and clad she sent out every day to beg for money he wrote in 1854 five thousand children throng the streets at all times the younger girls sweep the crosswalks the older girls prostitute themselves brace came up with a plan based on a simple notion families could care for children better than institutions he saw asylums like new york juvenile to be a poor solution and said that the best of all asylums for the outcast child is the farmer's home the great duty is to get these children of unhappy fortune utterly out of their surroundings and send them away to the country to that end he formed the children's aid society in 1853. the society had a large range of initiatives to assist poor children but it's become most famous for its efforts in getting poor and orphaned children into foster families initially bryce placed children individually in homes fairly close to the city and surrounding states but in 1854 began what is now known as the orphanage train program the term orphan trains was not used at the time and the aid society called it the immigration department home finding department and finally the department of foster care but the most common term at the time was out placement to distinguish it from placing children in orphanages and despite the popularity of that term orphan train many of the children never rode a train or in fact didn't go very far at all about a third of them found their placement within the state of new york the first orphan train left for new york city from michigan in september 1854. 45 children were accompanied by ep smith an agent of the society the trip proved an adventure for children most of whom had never seen anything other than a squalid city the journal of the trip reads as we whirled through orchards loaded with large red apples their enthusiasm rose to the highest pitch it was difficult to keep them within doors arms stretching out hats swinging eyes swimming mouse watering and all screaming oh oh just look at them but the challenges of the program also showed on the trip there smith had allowed two passengers from manhattan to adopt boys without any reference and he picked up another boy in albany when the train arrived smith served as an advocate or less charitably a salesman playing on town's people's sympathies and extolling the advantages of handy boys and girls to do housework smith said in order to get a child any potential adopter had to have recommendations from a pastor and a justice of the peace but historians doubt the rules were strictly followed 15 of the children were adopted on the first day and 22 more found homes before smith sent the last eight by train to iowa city this first trip was judged to success and soon more parties were being sent west brace thought that farm families in the west needed the labor of children and that they had the necessary moral fiber to save the children from debauchery on the streets he wrote that in every american community especially a western one there are many spare places at the table of life the trains would become regular fixtures in many western towns eventually placing children in 45 states as well as in canada and mexico as brace was an ardent abolitionist before the civil war children weren't sent to the south committees were formed in towns which were responsible for arranging for adoptions often this meant some kind of event where children were put on stage and took turns giving their names singing a little ditty or saying a piece a practice that gave rise to the term put up for adoption the children often found the process unpleasant as they were prodded and checked for healthy teeth like livestock one newspaper account said that the boys were seated on the stage facing the audience the mode of distribution was for the agent to call the name of an applicant and let him select his boy the children were adopted for free although the aid society stipulated that they should be well taken care of there were other ways that children were adopted as well sometimes families would fill out a form specifying things like age gender and even eye or hair color organizations would identify a child and send them out the program was supported by philanthropists like charlotte augustus gibbs and by money raised through braces speaking and writing engagements the children were given new clothes and a bible as they got on the train like their first time on that new technology at least on paper prospective adoptive parents were expected to treat the children well and were screened to be fit as parents younger children were to be treated as one of their own children and were to be sent to a school and society agents were supposed to check in once a year a goal that was impossible given that there were only a handful of agents and thousands of placements older boys might remain for one year before deciding to stay or go by 1855 the society was sending 3 000 kids a year west and dozens of institutions were filling children to the trains railroads gave discounted fares to the children and their agents stories of the children abound an 1891 edition of the chicago tribune said that they came from all the various avenues into which the little mites are driven by circumstance the oakland tribune wrote in 1909 from the great metropolis where they've been picked from the slums from wreaking tenements from homes of detention in alms houses the little ones were being carried into the great lonely unknown west to seek homes orphan susan galbraith's parents were dad she explained that she became a seeing girl i went on board boats and sung i had no other way of getting along i am tired of singing i would like to live with somebody though many children shared her plight a large number of the children sent west weren't actually orphans many were runaways feeling poverty or abuse and jumping at a chance for a new life others were given up voluntarily by parents who couldn't afford to take care of them mary ann moxie gave her child hattie freely and of my own will hereby promise not to interfere in any arrangements the society may make another child said later that my mother bore five children and accepted responsibility for none the program wasn't without its critics catholics accuse a protestant brace of trying to make protestants of the children a similar program of baby and mercy trains was started by catholic groups some abolitionists objected seeing as a kind of indentured servitude not far apart from slavery embrace disagreed saying that they focused on finding families for children as opposed to employment but the society did ask that older children be paid for their work often the children were adopted purely for their labor and in less common occasions abused or mistreated marguerite thompson was adopted from an orphan trained by a family in nebraska in 1993 she told the chicago tribune that she had no fond memories for her foster mother all she got me for was to work thompson said i never got any love in that home the program also left out children of color undesirable ethnicities those with handicaps and children deemed incorrigible and other organizations were even less circumspect in the suitability of parents but sent children west in the same ways others didn't want to go hazel latimer's mother was sick but alive but that didn't stop the orphanage from sending her to texas no use arguing she said later she never saw her mother again another recounted that his father gave him an envelope with his address asking him to be sure to let him know when he got to his destination his caretaker took it saying a clean break was best another refused to go home with a farmer resorting to biting and kicking which he said made the audience think he was an incorrigible he was lucky though eventually being adopted by an older couple who promised to buy him a pony and a bicycle and a puppy although either the family or the child could in the placement critics thought that the screening procedures were inadequate and that local committees wouldn't deny approval to even unfit neighbors for some children it took several tries before a placement stuck one girl ran away from her new family to return to the aid society tell them that the family didn't want a child they wanted a slave some thought the program only inundated the west with future criminals while others thought that the best of the immigrant children were being sent away the society insisted that their program successfully gave the children a chance at a real life in 1910 the society claimed that 87 of the children sent west had done well why eight percent had come back to new york and the remaining five percent had died disappeared or gotten arrested among children who had been on the trains many lived successful lives and became doctors lawyers mayors or congressmen who even became governors an independent investigation in 1883 determined that the committee while bad at screening was largely successful for children under the age of 14. for many of the children the experience was traumatic there was so much hurt and pain being separated from your family said one writer years later they told us not to talk about it it was such a stigma on orphans the children were viewed with suspicion and face bullying for being trained children as adults some of the children felt that they were treated more as a hired hand than a son or a daughter and others bemoaned the erasure of their family history the program lasted for 75 years before the last train from the aids society troubled west in 1929 but then many aid groups had shifted their focus and western states were growing and dealing with their own urbanization issues in 1895 michigan passed the statute banning the placement of out-of-state children without the payment of a bond to guarantee that the children would become a burden on the state and other states passed similar laws hoping to focus efforts on their own homeless children by 1929 the children's aid society and other organizations had moved more than 250 000 children west with mixed results the great great granddaughter of one of those orphans married the history guy and the underpinning of braces philosophy that children are better off in foster homes than in institutions like orphanages continues to be an underpinning of the foster care system that we have in the united states today which continues to face many of the same challenges that were faced in the 19th century and even the kids who found loving homes in the west seem to lose something in the forced migration but most historians agree that the program was beneficial to most of the children and historically the orphaned trains represented a massive immigration program that helped define what it means to be an american the children's aid society still exists today continues to be involved in programs to help needy children i hope you enjoyed this episode of the history guy short snippets of forgotten history between 10 and 15 minutes long and if you did enjoy please go ahead and click that thumbs up button if you have any questions or comments or suggestions for future episodes please write those in the comment section i will be happy to personally respond be sure to follow the history guy on facebook instagram twitter and check out our merchandise 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Channel: The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered

Views: 57,713

Rating: 4.9698639 out of 5

Keywords: history, history guy, the history guy, US History, orphan trains, children's aid society

Id: Gw4CVH1hSeE

Length: 14min 41sec (881 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 26 2021