WHO STARTED THE ORPHAN TRAINS?
Basically, there were two main institutions responsible for this mass “emigration” of children from New York. Those institutions are The Children’s Aid Society, and The New York Foundling Hospital. Both are still active today (in 1996) helping children. The first “train” went out from The Children’s Aid Society on September 20, 1854, with 46 ten-to-twelve-year-old boys and girls. Their destination was Dowagiac, Michigan. All 46 children were successfully placed in new homes. While this “placement” effort of orphans was not entirely original to these two institutions, there had been similar efforts tried in Boston as early as the mid 1840s, they are the institutions that most often come to mind when discussing the Orphan Train movement. Rev. Charles Loring Brace and The Children’s Aid Society: Brace, a 26 year old Congregational minister, found his “calling” a little closer to street-level, than the lofty climes of the pulpit. In 1853, concerned with the growing number of “homeless” chi
