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Article: Orphan Trains
- Article from:
- Encyclopedia of Children and Childhood in History and Society
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Orphan Trains
The term
orphan trains
refers to the mid-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century method of placing destitute, urban children in the homes of largely rural families. Mid- and late-nineteenth-century reformers were increasingly concerned with the accumulating social ills of an advancing industrial society, including child poverty. Growing numbers of mostly immigrant, poor children filled the streets of nineteenth-century urban America. For instance, in 1849 approximately 3,000 homeless children lived and sometimes worked on the sidewalks of New York City. Charles Loring Brace was one of the most well-known of the reformers to respond to the plight of these children. In 1853 ...