Orphan Train

In our current age of extensive child advocacy, it might be difficult to envision a time in our country when thousands of children existed as, to borrow the term from the Academy Award winning movie, "slumdogs." But that is precisely what happened in the East in the mid-1800s, particularly in New York City. It was estimated that around 1850, thirty thousand homeless or abused children roamed the streets of New York City, often as gangs, relegated to a deplorable life and subject to crime and disease. Authorities didn't have a suitable solution, until a minister named Charles Brace proposed and implemented the orphan train experiment. Between 1854 and 1929, up to two hundred thousand of those children rode the trains to the rural farming communities in hope that they would experience normal family life. When the train stopped in the communities, the children were put on display for consideration by local families. Some were formally adopted, while some lived as indentured servants; some experienced loving families, while others experienced further abuse.

This post is not completely random. My earlier post on the brick mural in my home town sparked some discussion about the orphan trains. In one of the pictures, three children are representative of that part of Concordia's history. Last year, Concordia opened the Orphan Train Museum and Research Center at the restored Union Pacific Railroad Depot. Interestingly, it was discovered that two orphan train children eventually became governors of North Dakota and Alaska.