Overview

A powerful blend of history, biography, and adventure, ORPHAN TRAINS fills a grievous gap in the American story. Tracing the evolution of the Children s Aid Society, this dramatic narrative tells the fascinating tale of one of the most famous and sometimes infamous child welfare programs: the orphan trains, which spirited away some 250,000 abandoned children into the homes of rural families in the Midwest. In mid-nineteenth-century New York, vagrant children, whether orphans or runaways, filled the streets. The city s solution for years had been to sweep these children into prisons or almshouses. But a young minister named Charles Loring Brace took a different tack. With the creation of the Children s Aid Society in 1853, he provided homeless youngsters with shelter, education, and, for many, a new family out west. The family matching process was haphazard, to say the least: at town meetings, farming families took their pick of the orphan train riders. Some youngsters, such as James Brady, who became governor of Alaska, found loving homes, while others, such as Charley Miller, who shot two boys on a train in Wyoming, saw no end to their misery. Complete with extraordinary photographs and deeply moving stories, Orphan Trains gives invaluable insights into a creative genius whose pioneering, if controversial, efforts inform child rescue work today.

Full Product Details

9781322248783

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Reviews

An instructive and fascinating slice of social history...O'Connor, a creative-writing teacher, is at heart a storyteller. - USA Today March 1, 2001 USA Today [An] engaging and thoughtful history...immensely readable book. - Los Angeles Times, February 26, 2001 The Los Angeles Times A fascinating, important, and revealing commentary...a meticulous, overdure and serious look at a little-known chapter of history. -New York Daily News, February 18, 2001 The New York Daily News

Author Information

Stephen O'Connor is the author of Will My Name Be Shouted Out?, an account of his years teaching creative writing at an inner-city school in New York. Katha Pollitt called it a wonderful, heartbreaking, enraging book. O'Connor is also the author of Rescue, a collection of short fiction. An adjunct professor in creative writing at Lehman College, he also teaches at the New School.

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