Will we see "Orphan Trains" again in our lifetime?

[Horse with no Name]

I know a woman who came to our county on the Orphan Train. I had never heard of it before so I started doing some research. There is very little information out there about it though.

>>>snip
From about 1850 through the early twentieth century, thousands of children were transfered from the overcrowded orphanages and homes in the large cities in the northeastern United States, to live with families on farms throughout the middle West.

The name orphan train originates with the railroad trains that transported the children to their new homes. While some of the children were orphans, many of them had one or even two living parents. In those cases, the child's parents were unable or unwilling to care for them. Other parents believed their children would have a better life if sent to a caring family in the farmlands of the west. Many of the parents and children were immigrants who found life in America harder than they anticipated.

The goal of the orphan trains was to provide the children with a better life - many had fended for themselves on the streets of New York. Many were not babies, but were in their teens when sent West. The results were mixed. In some cases, as adults, the orphan train riders were very positive about their adoptive family, felt they were treated well, loved, and given a better chance in life. However, in many cases, the children were taken into a new home only for the work they were expected to do. Some were mistreated. In many cases, siblings were separated from each other and consequently, from the only family they knew.

Family history research about Orphan Train Riders is often a difficult undertaking. Records can be scarce. As adults, children often did not remember or did not discuss their previous life in the east. Many feel that contact with siblings and living relatives was discouraged - perhaps in an attempt to "help the children adjust" to their new home.

http://www.outfitters.com/~melissa/ot/ot.html



>>>snip
Picture the plight of the poor immigrant coming to America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In most cases they left poverty and oppression. Unfortunately they often discovered conditions were little better in the new world
The immigrants found few jobs. There was no labor union, no sick leave, no insurance. A steady supply of willing replacements meant low wages and appalling conditions. Worse, dangerous jobs meant numerous accidents and no safety net for those who suffered disabilities.
Small wonder the children of these families suffered terribly. Many found their parents unable to care for them, and in desperation turned to the streets to sell newspapers, beg for food or steal to get by.
In 1854 estimates put the number of homeless children in New York City at 34,000. Clearly, something had to be done for this class of people called "street Arabs" or "the dangerous classes".
http://www.rootsweb.com/~mogrundy/orphans.html
>>>>snip

The reason for this question is that our safety net is being slowly dismantled from beneath us, what will happen to the most fragile of those that have children?
It appears that many of these children were used for farm labor. If the border becomes sealed, is it farfetched to believe that some Republican somewhere won't think this idea is great?

>>>snip
Placement into new families was casual at best. Handbills heralded the distribution of cargoes of needy children. As the trains pulled into towns, the youngsters were cleaned up and paraded on makeshift stages before crowds of prospective parents. Elliot Bobo remembers the ordeal:

A farmer came up to me and felt my muscles. And he says, "Oh, you'd make a good hand on the farm." And I say. "You smell bad. You haven't had a bath, probably, in a year." And he took me by the arm and was gonna lead me off the stage, and I bit him. And that didn't work. So I kicked him. Everybody in the audience thought I was incorrigible. They didn't want me because I was out of control. I was crying in the chair by myself.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/orphan/

>>>>snip

[Extend a Hand]

1. anne of green gables

was a historical fiction series about an orphan train child. I loved those books when I was a kid.

[hlthe2b]

2. My mother was adopted during this time....

and her midwestern adoptive mother was "inspired" by these orphan trains... There were clearly two sides to the story--kind hearted people wanting to help and truly wanting these children... and those who exploited the helpless children for their own ends. I think my adoptive grandmother was in between. The novelty of the situation and the chance to point at adoption as proof of her own altruism was very appealing. Yet, she never let my mother forget she was "lucky" to be adopted and quite distinctly different than the natural born child they were to have a few years later...

[Gormy Cuss]

3. I don't know about the trains, but I see orphanages ahead.

Too many people seem to be happy to shut down social safety net programs these days because they don't want their tax dollars going to support 'those people' even though most of 'those people' are children. The foster care system is overburdened as it is. I'm wait for the right wing meme that orphanages would be more effective and safer environment than the patchwork of foster homes spread out over a wide area.

[Nobody]

7. It's already happening

In Minnesota, an advocate for the homeless has pushed and pushed on getting her orphanage built. She was a very hardworking and generous activist when working for the homeless, but when she decided that an orphanage was just the thing, she refused to allow anyone to discuss the matter. She refused to answer questions about how the orphanage would be run, the education plans, which children would be placed there, and what happened when they aged out of the system. If anyone had questions, she would hop up on her pedestal and accuse the questioner of have no compassion for kids in the foster care program and go on about how much work she did for the homeless.

That still doesn't answer the question about whether an orphanage would be a good idea. All debate turned to zoning instead of logistics and whether or not this would actually be beneficial. As it happens, the only bit of info I heard about was that the children they'd take would be the ones most easily placed in the foster care system. No incorrigible troublemakers, no drug-using teens, no one with special needs, and very young children only. No information about how old you have to be to age out into foster care or if the children, once placed, would stay until adopted.

Insufficient data for everything else. But now a city with a severely Republican mayor and city council approved the site and it's getting built. And still we the people of MN know too little because of the "I'm A Great Humanitarian" card being played at every opportunity.

[Gormy Cuss]

12. Nice little babies -- that would guarantee success.

How cute and adoptable they would be.
The incorrigible kids can be sent to reform schools again. That'll teach them. :sarcasm:

I think that small scale facilities modeled after day care centers would be an acceptable form of transitional housing if the staff to child ratio during the day was 1:3 or better and only pre-school age children were housed in this manner. It would also be important to limit the total time to a few months. Such as center could provide for more time to find appropriate foster placements or to allow parents to clean up their act. Having said that, I wouldn't trust this solution in the hands of a fiscal or social conservative because they'd want to do it on the cheap. The term 'warehouse' comes to mind.

[Stargazer99]

4. A prime example of Conservative Republican "solutions"

As long as it doesn't gore their ox, it seems to me they don't really care about life. They care only when (anti-abortionist)it proves how "godly and rightous" they are by being anti-abortion. It is self-evident at the present with the continual cutting of programs that benefit those that "don't own the means of production".

[Nobody]

5. Thanks for all those links

I'll go surfing later when I have more time.

My grandmother rode west from NYC when she was three. She was the traditional foundling left in front of the Children's Home Society with a name pinned to her baby blanket.

When she came to the midwest, the family that signed up for her took one look at how skinny she was and said no. Another family stepped up instead so she wouldn't have to get back on the train. The family that took her in already had a baker's dozen children. She had a happy ending, and my guess is that the first family that took her in was mainly interested in someone they could raise to be a servant. Otherwise "too skinny" wouldn't have mattered. It was so easy back then for farmers to "adopt" indentured servants, but there were good people around back then. My grandma was very lucky.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

6. I believe my great grandmother and her brother

were on an orphan train, and were adopted. They were treated well, though.

[Atman]

8. No. The GOP will call them HAPPY KID CHOO-CHOO RIDES now.

They go one-way to Paradise Island.

[noonwitch]

9. It sounds like the people behind the idea thought it was a novel plan

They really thought the children would be better off with a big farming family outside of the city. They would never do that now, adoption is very regulated in any state, at least when a state agency or a private children's charity is involved.

Orphanages, on the other hand, have always existed. They might call them different names now-usually "residential treatment facilities" for teens in the foster care system who have behavior problems or mental health conditions. Little kids are almost always placed with foster parents or relatives of the biological parents. If the system were to get overwhelmed by a bunch of kids at once, the concern would not be that babies were placed in orphanages, it would be more that kids who are 7-12, and teens who don't have behavior problems would end up there, because the priority would be to get babies and little kids into the suddenly limited number of foster homes. It takes 6 months to screen, train and license new foster homes, so it would take about a year for a recruiting effort to pay off.

[MountainLaurel]

10. Remember Newt's plan for orphanages?

And the Shrub mentioning the unwed girls' homes (mainly used as suppliers in the adoption business) in one of his debates with Kerry? Orphan trains aren't so far-fetched.

[The Stranger]

11. Right Wing Fundies are always trying to adopt and convert/"save" children.

I hope there is some kind of screening of the adopting families.