Talk:Orphan Train

Proposed Edits
I am a law student research assistant. I am attempting to add edits to this page and related pages in order to enrich the wealth of knowledge about the field of foster care, child placements, and the involvement of religious institutions. Unfortunately, many of my edit attempts have been undone based on an apparent flag for conflict of interest. However, the source I am primarily adding is a relevant academic work, much like many of the other admitted sources on this page. I have also assisted in flagging additional sources, cross-referencing other Wiki pages, as well as correcting existing typographical and grammatical errors. I am proposing my edits below in bold in the hopes that you will implement them (or revert to the previous version of this page that includes them). Thank you for your time.

In first sentence: The Orphan Train Movement was a supervised welfare program that transported children from crowded Eastern cities of the United States to foster homes located largely in rural areas of the Midwest '''with the intended goal of relocating them to families who could provide basics such as education and sustenance in exchange for labor.  The orphan trains operated between 1854 and 1929, relocating about''' 200,000 children. '''Envisioned as an improvement over apprenticeship, placing out was intended to lead to each child’s permanent acceptance as a member of the family. ''' The co-founders of the Orphan Train movement claimed that these children were orphaned, abandoned, abused, or homeless, but this was not always true. They were mostly the children of new immigrants and the children of the poor and destitute families living in these cities. Criticisms of the program include that there were ineffective screenings of caretakers and insufficient follow-ups on placements, both of which could lead to the mistreatment of children. '''Additionally, in the 1870s, there were accusations that children were "stolen" in order to provide labor and potentially receive religious instruction. '''

In New York Foundling Hospital Mercy Trains Section:

The New York Foundling Hospital was established in 1869 by Sister Mary Irene Fitzgibbon of the Sisters of Charity of New York as a shelter for abandoned infants. The Sisters worked in conjunction with Priests throughout the Midwest and South in an effort to place these children in Catholic families, '''largely in response to the concern that organizations, such as Children's Aid Society, were using placing out via orphan trains to proselytize children in the Protestant faith. ''' The Foundling Hospital sent infants and toddlers to prearranged Roman Catholic homes from 1875 to 1914. Parishioners in the destination regions were asked to accept children, and parish priests provided applications to approved families. This practice was first known as the "Baby Train," then later the "Mercy Train." By the 1910s, 1,000 children a year were placed with new families.

In Criticisms Section:

Linda McCaffery, a professor at Barton County Community College, explained the range of Orphan Train experiences: "Many were used as strictly slave farm labor, but there are stories, wonderful stories of children ending up in fine families that loved them, cherished them, [and] educated them."[11]

Orphan train children faced obstacles ranging from the prejudice of classmates because they were train children to feeling like outsiders in their families during their entire lives.[1] Many rural people viewed the orphan train children with suspicion, as the incorrigible offspring of drunkards and prostitutes.[10]

Criticisms of the orphan train movement focused on concerns that initial placements were made hastily, without proper investigation, and that there was an insufficient follow-up on placements.  Charities were also criticized for not keeping track of children placed while under their care. In 1883, Brace consented to an independent investigation. It found the local committees were ineffective at screening foster parents. The supervision was lax. Many older boys had run away. But its overall conclusion was positive. The majority of children under fourteen were leading satisfactory lives.

Applicants for children were supposed to be screened by committees of local businessmen, ministers, or physicians, but the screening was rarely very thorough.[5] Small-town ministers, judges, and other local leaders were often reluctant to reject a potential foster parent as unfit if he were also a friend or customer.[7]

Many children lost their identity through forced name changes and repeated moves.[15] In 1996, Alice Ayler said, "I was one of the luckier ones because I know my heritage. They took away the identity of the younger riders by not allowing contact with the past."[16]

Many children who were placed out west had survived on the streets of New York, Boston or other large Eastern cities and generally, they were not the obedient children which many families expected them to be.[8] In 1880, a Mr. Coffin of Indiana editorialized, "Children so thrown out from the cities are a source of much corruption in the country places where they are thrown... Very few such children are useful."[17]

Some residents of placement locations charged that orphan trains were dumping undesirable children from the East onto Western communities.[8] In 1874, the National Prison Reform Congress charged that these practices resulted in increased correctional expenses in the West.[8]

Older boys wanted to be paid for their labor, sometimes, they asked for additional pay or they left a placement in order to find a higher paying placement. It is estimated that young men initiated 80% of the placement changes.[8]

One of the many children who rode the train was Lee Nailing. Lee's mother died of sickness; after her death, Lee's father could not afford to keep his children. [citation needed] Another orphan train child was named Alice Ayler. Alice rode the train because her single mother could not provide for her children; before the journey, they lived on "berries" and "green water."[citation needed]

'''Much of the criticism of Orphan Trains centered around potential religious indoctrination. The Children's Aid Society's Orphan Train program was accused of being a cover for Protestants to proselytize among the poor, immigrant, predominately Catholic children. ''' Catholic clergy maintained that some charities were deliberately placing Catholic children in Protestant homes in order to change their religious practices. The Society for the Protection of Destitute Roman Catholic Children in the City of New York (known as the Protectory) was founded in 1863. The Protectory ran orphanages and place out programs for Catholic youth in response to Brace's Protestant-centered program. '''The New York Foundling Asylum of the Sisters of Charity was founded in response to these concerns regarding religious indoctrination, and later took on a similar mission to provide placing out services for Catholic youth.  Similar charges of conversion via adoption were made concerning the placement of Jewish children, though Jewish children were largely absent from the placing out story because Jews as an immigrant group were more likely than others to arrive as a family unit. '''

Not all of the orphan train children were real orphans, but they were classified as orphans after they were forcibly removed from their biological families and transported to other states.[8] Some claimed that this practice was a deliberate pattern which was intended to break up immigrant Catholic families.[8] Some abolitionists opposed placements of children with Western families, viewing indentureship as a form of slavery.[8]

Orphan trains were the target of lawsuits, generally filed by parents who attempted to reclaim their children.[8] Suits were occasionally filed by receiving parents or receiving family members who claimed that they either lost money or were harmed as the result of the placement.[8]

The Minnesota State Board of Corrections and Charities reviewed Minnesota orphan train placements between 1880 and 1883. The Board found that while children were hastily placed into their placements without proper investigations, only a few children were "depraved" or abused. The review criticized local committee members who were swayed by pressure from wealthy and important individuals in their community. The Board also pointed out that older children were frequently placed with farmers who expected to profit from their labor. The Board recommended that paid agents replace or supplement local committees in investigating and reviewing all applications and placements.[8]

A complicated lawsuit arose from a 1904 Arizona Territory orphan train placement in which the New York Foundling Hospital sent 40 white children between the ages of 18 months and 5 years to be indentured to Catholic families in an Arizona Territory parish. The families which were approved for placement by the local priest were identified as "Mexican Indian" families in the subsequent litigation. The nuns who escorted these children were unaware of the racial tension which existed between local Anglo and Mexican groups and as a result, they placed white children with Mexican Indian families.  A group of white men, described as "just short of a lynch mob," forcibly took the children from the Mexican Indian homes and placed most of them with Anglo families. Some of the children were returned to the Foundling Hospital, but 19 of them remained with the Anglo Arizona Territory families. The Foundling Hospital filed a writ of habeas corpus in which it sought the return of these children. The Arizona Supreme Court ruled that the best interests of the children required them to remain in their new Arizona homes. On appeal, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the filing of a writ of habeas corpus which sought the return of a child constituted an improper use of the writ. Habeas corpus writs should be used "solely in cases of arrest and forcible imprisonment under color or claim of warrant of law," and they should not be used to obtain or transfer the custody of children. At the time, these events were well-documented in published newspaper stories which were titled "Babies Sold Like Sheep," telling readers that the New York Foundling Hospital "has for years been shipping children in car-loads all over the country, and they are given away and sold like cattle."[8]

Gator.scholar24 (talk) 15:43, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

Untitled
The National Orphan Train Museum and Research facility recently opened in Concordia, Kansas. I've got some photos of the dedication to put up soon, but any help with this article will be greatly appreciated.--Paul McDonald 04:05, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Could someone please help me find which child said "They didn't want a kid, they wanted a slave" after he ran away from their farm? I saw it once but now can't find it. Thanks. Sundiii (talk) 18:10, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Never mind, I found it. It was in PBS show transcript, Hazelle Latimer said it.  Sundiii (talk) 17:19, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

usa today 26.1.2012
there are story about this crime. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.69.141.80 (talk) 09:25, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

In Fiction
Joan Lowery Nixon's Orphan Train Adventure Series, Jane Pearl's The Orphan Train Series, and The Orphan Train Rider series should be mentioned. Irish Melkite (talk) 01:36, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Factual Accuracy Disputed
If you could or would say HOW it's biassed, you might not come off as a party with an axe to grind here. Article's first two sections is a biased, carbon copy of Children's Aid Society article and dubious, as Children's Village (formerly New York Juvenile Asylum) was founded first in 1851 by 24 far more notable politicians and businessmen than Brace, and also started sending riders in 1854.

Great Depression Revival
I think orphan-trains got revived in the great-depression, since there were a lot of kids riding on trains at the time.184.186.4.209 (talk) 22:24, 17 July 2019 (UTC)