The Orphan Trains of the 19th and early 20th centuries inspired novels, movies, and TV shows, but they were more complicated than they sometimes seem. Some 200,000 children were put up for adoption, as the process was called, but not all were even orphans, and few were actually adopted.
The Children’s Aid Society
The Rev. Charles Loring Brace founded the New York Children’s Aid Society in 1853. He was moved by the plight of needy children in New York. Some were orphans and some were not, but they seemed to Brace to be neglected, feral creatures with little hope for the future. Their parents were out at work or working at home,. often with the children working along with them. Tenement life was hard, with filth and disease constant companions. Children often had no access to fresh water or food, or even to fresh air and sunshine. Brace felt that these children had no future, and had little respect for their parents.
At the same time, farms out west needed workers, and it had been the norm for centuries for impoverished parents to send kids to work in richer households. There they could expect to be fed and clothed and trained for a trade, when their parents might not have been able to manage to do any of those things.
Brace had the idea of sending the at-risk children he saw in New York City out west on trains. They’d have a more wholesome life, he figured, and the farmers would get workers or new family members. He and his helpers were not careful about making sure that the children they shipped out were actually orphans, about getting permission from their parents, or about keeping groups of siblings together. They figured that all the poor children they saw would be better off on farms than they were in the gutters of New York.
Put up for adoption
The trains would let towns they visited know when they expected to arrive. When the train stopped, the children would line up on the platform. Some children would dance, recite a poem, or sing. Sometimes they were expected to introduce themselves. Townspeople would come up to the children to check their teeth or otherwise assure themselves that the children were healthy. These displays were the origin of the phrase “put up for adoption” since the children were literally put up on a platform to be chosen by adults.
Any adult could just pick out a child or children and take them home. Kids who were not chosen would get back on the train and head to the next stop. There they would try again.
The children were washed, given haircuts and new clothes, and coached on how to be appealing to the grown-ups they needed to impress in order to get new homes. Brace and his organization worked hard to publicize the program. While one plan might have been to “Americanize” immigrant children or to encourage Catholic and Jewish children to become Protestant, it does appear that the Children’s Aid Society believed they were doing the best thing for the children.
Long-term effects
One of the effects that Brace did not foresee was the push to develop modern adoption laws. Some of the farmers who brought home Orphan Train children wanted them as family members. They pushed for legal adoption in their states, so they could make sure the children would inherit their property.
There were also plenty of people who worried about the slapdash nature of Orphan Train fostering. They agitated for laws about consent from parents, treatment of the children, and accountability. These efforts led to the modern foster care system and new adoption laws across the nation.
You’ll sometimes still hear the phrase “put up for adoption,” but the modern adoption experience is a far cry from the Orphan Trains.