Orphan Train Research Paper

Children were orphaned everyday, and many of the older orphaned children were forced to take care of the younger orphaned. In order for the children to survive, they needed to make themselves useful. Small children would crawl through narrow openings and smuggle food into the ghettos for their friends and families. They did this with great risk, because if they were caught they would be punished severely. Jerry Koenig continues, “The only way you could survive was by supplementing your diet with the things bought through the black market. But you can imagine that if the sellers were risking their lives to obtain these things, then the price is going to be extremely high” (Remembering: Voices of the Holocaust).

Orphan trains and Carlisle and the ways people from the past undermined the minorities and children of America. The film "The orphan Trains" tells us the story of children who were taken from the streets of New York City and put on trains to rural America. A traffic in immigrant children were developed and droves of them teamed the streets of New York (A People's History of the United States 1492-present, 260). The streets of NYC were dirty, overcrowded, and dangerous. Just as street gangs had female auxiliaries, they also had farm leagues for children (These are the Good Old Days, 19). During the time of the late 1800's and early 1900's many people were trying to help children. Progressive reformers, often called

In 1980, about 500,000 children were in foster care, but a series of successful reforms began with that year 's Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act which dramatically decreased the number of children in foster care. But in the early 1990s, with the advent of crack cocaine and an economic recession numbers went back up. Child welfare advocates said that the foster care system was in need of changes so that children spend less time in foster placements and that America’s child welfare system needed an improvement. Some children in care were separated from their siblings, others transitioned from one foster care placement to another, never knowing where to call home. Too many children were being abused in systems that were supposed to protect them. Instead of being safely reunified with their families or moved quickly into adoptive homes many remained in foster homes or institutions for years.

Starting in the 1850s, there were great increases in urbanization. Movements such as The Great Migration lead to huge populations in newly industrialized cities. In addition, there was a great increase in immigration, especially from families of eastern and southern European descent. The Orphan Train Movement’s purpose was to give the thousands of children in New York City that were left without homes due to increased urbanization and industrialization a new family out west with good living conditions and values and to increase the number of farm workers. The children mostly were placed with good families, but some children were treated as slaved by their families. Additionally, most of the children were excited to work; however, some were

Societal viewpoints went institutions multiplying, as the public demanded the removal of children from almshouses. Unfortunately, juvenile institutions were not always an improvement, and overcrowded conditions and poor care prompted the establishment of a system that placed children in private homes. To having foster parents and rules of child care in place that must be followed. There are now services in place for children that max out of the system to get help with food, education, and housing. Families can now get child care, the Earned Income Tax Credit, food stamps, and Medicaid to help take care of their children.

In her book, The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction, Linda Gordon argues that the events of October 1904 in Clifton-Morenci, and the Supreme Court’s case that followed, were to blame for the development of a more obvious racial hierarchy in the US’southwestern states. The events covered in this book include the New York Foundling Hospital’s use of orphan trains to attempt to place New York orphans with Catholic families in Arizona, the Anglo-Protestant community’s negative reaction to the NYFH’s process, and the legal battle which resulted from this. To support her argument, Gordon illustrates the three way battle of motives between the sisters sent by the NYFH, the Mexican adopters, and the Anglo kidnappers of 1904 Arizona.

4). In the scope of adoption, it is evident that child welfare agencies use the majority of their available resources for placing children in foster families, investigating child-abuse cases, and providing other family services. “As a consequence, they do not possess adequate additional resources for efficiently placing children in adoptive homes once they are available for adoption, depriving many children of the benefits a stable, permanent home provides” (Snell, 2000, p. 2). The current government operated child welfare system is detrimental to the children involved due to its inability to ensure their safety and

In History and Society, edited by Paula S. Fass, vol. 2, Macmillan Reference USA, 2004, pp. 680-681. U.S. History in Context, link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/CX3402800328/UHIC?u=azstatelibdev&xid=698a7145. Accessed 7 Dec. 2017. Orphan Train by Christina Baker

Orphan trains is a documentary about children in New York, being sent on trains to other parts of the country, in order to find families and be taken care of. There are stories from, adults that actually rode on these trains when they were children. The Orphan Trains was started by a man named Charles Loring Brace in 1854. Brace, had traveled to New York in the early 1850’s, and was horrified at the conditions of all the children he saw on the street. Brace felt that it was a duty to help these children out, and decided that the only way to help these children was to get them away from their surroundings, and send them away to be raised in nice, Christian homes around the country. So, in 1853, Brace founded the Children’s

About thirty to forty children rode these trains with only two to three adults. They were told that they were going out west, but the children really had no idea what that meant. Most of them had never been outside of New York.

Back in the 1800 many children were poor and homeless and begging for food. Now that we have realized that this is happening to children there are charities who feed the homeless and have foster homes. Usually in major cities there are more homeless children and people that need help. Charles Loring Brace founded a charity in New York, to help poor children that are in the city for example. Charles found caring homes to teach the child good manners and not for labor. There are many organizations like the Charles Loring Brace charity that help out children in need. Back in the 1800’s there were no charity’s to give out food and water and supplies for the children but now that we have grown to be a better society there are more and more people

Some have the strength to say that they will someday have a new family. Orphans are waiting. They are waiting to be adopted or to die without a family. ‘’The best house is the house where an orphan gets love and kindness.’’ An orphan can have a lot of homes but the best one is where they get treated right.

I believe that Christina Baker Kline wrote Orphan Train to give insight on the little known fact that, from 1854 to 1929, orphans were placed onto a train and shipped around the United States to prospective parents. Kline was trying to bring upon the point of social injustice and welfare that humans endured during that time. “You’re not allowed to bring keepsakes with you on the train.’ ‘It’s- It’s the only thing I have left” (27). During the process of Niamh being adopted; “I’ll be honest with you.

The differences between the New Deal reformers and the child welfare workers who provided services to Malcom X’s family was that the child welfare workers were not providing adequate and equal services to the family(Haley, 1996). Malcom X ’s stated that when the social worker came to their home “they were looked at as if they were not people”. Even though Malcom X’s family was receiving some kind of service, to the eyesight of these people Malcom x’s stated that “they were just like things”.

For twenty-six years beginning in the year 1854 homeless children from New York City were sent out west on trains. The west was thought of as the land of the future and change. People would move out west to “start over”. Beginning in the 1860s the Sisters of Charity began to play a significant role in helping the homeless children in New York City. One way the Sisters of Charity helped children was by allowing mothers of unwanted newborns to leave their babies in the sisters care. Due to the ‘growing Catholic political power” (Gordon, Location 210) the Sisters of Charity won “a regular state subsidy by 1873 as well as a grant for a new building” (Gordon, Location 210). This allowed them to expand their operation. They were also able to keep