Orphan Trains Were Derailed By The Great Depression
These kids were a boon for farmers in the rapidly expanding mid-west, and between the years of 1853 to 1929, 200,000 children were shuttled by train across the country. Brace was confident he’d done a good thing. And for the most part, he did. But for some children, their situation was far from rosy.
But he was a man who did not believe in social services. Handouts, he said, only fed the poor and didn’t solve the problem. Hard work, he believed, and highly structured schedules were what was needed to break the cycle. While he realized these children were adopted to be forced into hard labor, he set up strict standards in the hopes that adopted children would be treated the same as biological children. He set very strict standards for families who were allowed to adopt and tried to set up a system where these kids were checked on regularly. But over time, the system fell by the wayside and some children were treated like slaves, or abused in other ways. In other cases, children didn’t receive the education or the promised job training. And sometimes siblings traveling on the trains together were separated by their adoptive families. Ultimately some children ran away, either because of abuse, or the change from city life to life on a farm wasn’t a transition they were able to make.
Despite this, the program was still a rousing success, but with the stock market crash of October 29, 1929, much of the world plunged into the Great Depression, and most families could no longer afford an extra child. Fortunately, there were still options, in the form of group homes, or foster care – which was now available for children in need. And Brace is now considered the father of modern foster care. Thanks to his kindness and concern, the foundation for modern-day foster care was laid, and over time, additional sectarian and state governments became involved in placing children in homes. Three states were at the vanguard of this movement: Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and South Dakota. Prior to 1865, Massachusetts began paying board to families who took in children who weren’t old enough to work as indentured servants. In 1885, Pennsylvania passed the first licensing laws that made it illegal to care for two or more unrelated children without a license. And South Dakota began providing subsidies for the Children’s Home Society after its creation in 1893 to benefit public childcare work.
As the new century began, social agencies began supervising foster parents and records were now being kept. This meant children’s needs were now being considered as they were placed in new homes, and the federal government began providing support for states to inspect foster homes. Additionally, services were provided for biological families to make a child’s return easier. Foster parents were now professionally regarded as part of a team helping to provide permanency and stability to dependent children.
While the number of adoptions started out small, the statistics have since blossomed, with 135,000 children adopted each year in the United States. An additional 428,000 kids are in foster care, all because of a young minister in 1854 who wanted to help homeless children.
Here are our sources:
What Is The History Of ‘Putting A Child Up’ For Adoption? Melissa Giarrosso. Adoption.org. 2019
The History Of Adoption/Ancient Adoptions Were Not Always In The Interest Of The Child. Beth Rowen. Infoplease 2000-2018
National Orphan Train Museum. Suzanne. Window On The Prairie. July 16, 2010.
The American Orphan Trains. Will Moneymaker. Ancestral Findings. 1995-2009.
History Of Foster Care In The United States. The National Foster Parent Association.
Adoption Statistics. The Adoption Network Law Center. 2019.