A step back in time: All Aboard........the orphan trains. Could this happen again?

[Horse with no Name]

I was reading Manny's thread and was compelled to start this. A friend of mine's grandmother was on the Orphan Trains and ended up in Arkansas.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x582583

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/orphan/
>>>snip
Eighty years ago, Elliot Bobo was taken from his alcoholic father's home, given a small cardboard suitcase, and put on board an "orphan train" bound for Arkansas. Bobo never saw his father again. He was one of tens of thousands of neglected and orphaned children who over a 75-year period were uprooted from the city and sent by train to farming communities to start new lives with new families. Elliot Bobo's remarkable story is part ofThe Orphan Trains.
Photo of orphans The story of this ambitious and finally controversial effort to rescue poor and homeless children begins in the 1850s, when thousands of children roamed the streets of New York in search of money, food and shelter--prey to disease and crime. Many sold matches, rags, or newspapers to survive. For protection against street violence, they banded together and formed gangs. Police, faced with a growing problem, were known to arrest vagrant children--some as young as five--locking them up with adult criminals.

In 1853, a young minister, Charles Loring Brace, became obsessed by the plight of these children, who because of their wanderings, were known as "street Arabs." A member of a prominent Connecticut family, Brace had come to New York to complete his seminary training. Horrified by the conditions he saw on the street, Brace was persuaded there was only one way to help these "children of unhappy fortune."

"The great duty," he wrote, "is to get utterly out of their surroundings and to send them away to kind Christian homes in the country."

>>>snip
As The Orphan Trains so poignantly reveals, even those for whom the journey ultimately was a triumph found the transition from one life to another almost always painful and confusing. "I would give a hundred worlds like this," wrote one child from her new comfortable home, "if you could see my mother," Brace himself grappled with the dilemma: "When a child of the streets stands before you in rags, with a tear-stained face, you cannot easily forget him. And yet, you are perplexed what to do. The human soul is difficult to interfere with. You hesitate how far you should go."

[CountAllVotes]

1. my mother was on one of these

She was adopted and dumped c. 1938 or so. She was given a one-way train ticket and $13.00 to a town she'd never been to in her life.

Sad damn reality and wow, it sure did a number on her head. :(

I hate reading about this. I thought we'd been done with such things but it seems not. :( :( :(

:kick:

[Horse with no Name]

4. A good chunk of these kids ended up slave labor on farms

under less than optimal conditions.

My friend was telling me that her mother remembers standing at the train station with her sister and people looking at them like cattle to see if they wanted to take them home or not.

She said that those that were not chosen, were put back on the train until the next town.

Horrific.

:hug: to your mother. I can't imagine this experience.

[murielm99]

2. Some of these children were worked to death.

Others were fine.

Someone in my area did a series of articles on the orphan trains. Many of these children came to my area. Their descendants are here now.

It was difficult for the writer to get information on these children. It was considered a stigma to admit that one had come from the orphan trains. Often, the orphans and their descendants did not speak of their backgrounds.

[CountAllVotes]

5. I never knew WHO my own mother was

until she was dead and that is no lie.

She rarely spoke of what they did to her. When she arrived at said town with $13.00 she got a job ASAP and lied about her age (stating she was older than she really was).

She attended night school and got her high school diploma after lots of work.

:(

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. Many of these kids ended up in the mines

and yes, this is what the upper crust wants to take us back to,

[Raster]

7. good ol' cheap American labor...

...it really is for their own good:sarcasm:

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. That is THE AXIS of American history

freedom, liberty, bu humbug just sounds good.

[old mark]

6. The GOP wants to take us all back to these times...No safety laws or unions,

no guaranteed minimum wage, no laws protecting workers. Child prostitution open and widespread, gang murders open and widespread, no civil service, little public education and few educational opportunities for the non-rich. Short life span, no "retirement" or "vacations" little healthcare of food inspection or regulation on drugs.

Welcome back to the late 1800's.

mark

[hlthe2b]

8. My late mother was supposedly on one of those... or else

her adoptive mother was supposedly motivated to adopt based on those stories. I never knew what to believe, but whatever the story it caused my Mom severe emotional harm. Of course, this "grandmother," (her adoptive mother) was quite a piece of work on her own.

Regardless, those trains did roll through rural Midwestern communities and it is a legacy that brought quite a bit of horror, for every one positive outcome that may have resulted. But, is it any better to throw these kids to the streets and the mercy of the pimps and drug dealers, as we increasingly have done now? :cry:

[Johnny_dollar]

10. Apparently, "street arabs" or "street urchins" were common ...

in Victorian England. They formed the Baker Street Irregulars in Sherlock Holmes stories.