Orphan Trains

LESSON FOR OCTOBER 2, 2013 Agenda  Prior Knowledge questions/class discussion  Orphan Train power point presentation (take Cornell notes)  Orphan Train Activity (pairs)  Orphan Train Wrap-Up – Complete power point presentation  Discuss activity and compete HOT-ROC Evaluation prompt  HW: Complete Orphan Train Activity Questions and Evaluation prompt if necessary.

C O M M O N C O R E S TAT E S TA N DA R D S C OV E R E D I N T H E L E S S O N

RH Reading Standards for Literacy in History/Social Studies 11-12

grade: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 WHST Writing Standards for Literacy in History/Social Studies 11-12 grade: 2B, 2C, 2E, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10

LESSON OBJECTIVES In the session we will cover the following objectives:  Cover the historical event of the Orphan Train Movement  Identify the socio-economic circumstances that led to the exposure of children in the United States.  Identify the socio-cultural attitudes that influenced perceptions of social class values and practices of child nurturing.  Identify reformers, reforming organizations and reforms for 19th-century child services.  Evaluate how these reforms continue to help or hinder child nurture and development in modern times.

ORPHAN TRAINS Placing Out In America

P R I O R K N OW L E D G E A N D BAC KG RO U N D Q U E S T I O N S  What or who is an expendable?

 Who classifies as an orphan?  What social-economic conditions support child labor?  What social-economic conditions abolish child labor?

 What do you know about the foster care system in the United States?  Why is it illegal for an adult, who is not a child’s legal guardian, to cross a state line with a child?

ORPHAN TRAINS Overview  During 1854-1929 150,000 to 200,000 “orphaned” children were “placed out” (or moved out west from the east coast) by the Children’s Aid Society and the eastern

Foundling Hospitals to be rehomed or otherwise indentured into western agricultural communities who were in need of work hands for farm labor.

 The expendable urchins of New York and Boston had been abandoned on the

city streets, dropped off on the steps of the wealthy, left at church entrances and hospitals doors in the hope that they

would be “foundlings” (found, rather than lost children without a hopeful future).

Original letters from Mothers of abandoned babes to the New York Foundling Hospital

 The poor immigrant population, and even 2nd and 3rd generation Americans were unable to provide for their young, and therefore exposed them to the city elements.

 While Eastern factories were swelling with small, industrious hands (and New England began to write the first child labor legislation enforced in the U.S.) the expanding western fields and economy needed a labor force for farming and

shop-keeping. And, a plan soon emerged.

 In 1855 an Illinois newspaper editor commented on the need to redistribute the nation’s work force. ‘Our county is swarming with a population which in order to be kept from want and distress must be employed. Some general system, which shall induce a withdrawal from the towns… is the great demand of the times.’ This commentator was not alone in his solution. Eastern urban reformers and some charities had reached the same conclusion, and in New York City, Charles Loring Brace, a reformer, had ‘resolved to make Charles Loring Brace, Founder of the Children's Aid Society

use … of the endless demand for children’s labor in the Western country.’ This demand and the plight of the urban poor allows the initiation of placing out, a system that brought the two worlds together.

 The Children's Aid Society, as well as the New York Foundling Hospital,

Boston’s Children’s Mission and the Philadelphia Women’s Industrial Aid Association moved the “orphans of the storm” by rail to the Midwest, West, South and Southwest, where they were handed over to those who were there to take them.

ORPHAN TRAIN ACTIVITY  Sit with your 6pm clock partners.  Read through the directions of the activity together, and begin working on the packet.  After you read each document (the primary resources) share your insights with your partner (2-3 minutes) and then each of you need to record your responses on your own worksheet.

 You will have 35 minutes of class time to complete this assignment, and what you do not finish you may complete for homework.  You many use additional paper as needed.  This assignment is due on Friday!

S P E C U L A T O RY Q U E S T I O N : Of the three groups pictured, which one pursued legal policy measures to end child labor, and provide mandated public education for children, thereby making child labor illegal, and public education mandatory?

Photo 1.: John D. Rockefeller’s philanthropic posturing, generously giving pocket change to a kid on the street. Photo 2. Sisters of the NYC Foundling Hospital nursing new born babies. Photo 3. Trade Union crew photo.

ROCKEFELLER’S WORK FORCE The ability to deal with people is as purchasable a commodity as sugar or coffee, and I will pay more for that ability than for any other under the sun. ~John D. Rockefeller Attributed in How to Win Friends and Influence People (1937) by Dale Carnegie

I would rather earn 1% off a 100 people's efforts than 100% of my own efforts. ~John D. Rockefeller

Though Catholic Charities often took the initial steps in sheltering and nurturing abandoned children, the Sisters who ran the Founding organizations had no legal training, nor pursued political activity, due to the “spiritual” nature or limitation of their vocation.

The trade unions were actively invested in removing the child labor force to improve their own work conditions. This also created a demand for public education, which the unions helped articulate and legally pass.

HEGEMONY Hegemony is the social, cultural, ideological, or economic influence exerted by a dominant group. It is a worldview that justifies the status quo of bourgeois and elitist domination of the other social classes of the society. In the praxis of hegemony, imperial dominance is established by means of cultural imperialism, whereby the leader state (hegemon) dictates the internal politics and the societal character of the subordinate states that constitute the hegemonic sphere of influence, either by an internal, sponsored government (aka, the political machine) or by an external, installed government (corrupted senators). Capitalist titan, John Rockefeller, had the means to bank the popular perception that he was a “Captain of Industry” to the common person in need of a job, and therefore the poor were indebted to him for their livelihood.

Those who own the words, own the world.

What perception of the elite is banked through this popular comic, Little Orphan Annie? Does this comic possibly serve an elite hegemony? Explain how.

WHY DID THE ORPHAN TRAINS END?  The last Orphan Train left the east coast in 1929. Many factors contributed to the decline and eventual ending of the placing out programs. However, the Orphan Train movement and the success of other Children's Aid initiatives led to a host of child welfare reforms, including child labor laws, adoption and the establishment of foster care services, public education, the provision of health

care and nutrition and vocational training. The Children’s Aid Society and the New York Foundling Hospital are still open, and still working on behalf of child services.

FAC T O R S C O N T R I BU T I N G T O T H E O F T H E O R P H A N T R A I N S

New Legislation Restricting Interstate Placement



State legislatures began to enact laws restricting or forbidding the interstate placement of children.



In 1887, Michigan passed the first law in the United States regulating the placement of children within the state. Again in 1895, Michigan passed a state law requiring out-of-state, childplacement agencies to post a bond for each child the agency brought into the state of Michigan.

 In 1899, Indiana, Illinois and Minnesota enacted similar but stricter laws which had the effect of prohibiting the placement of incorrigible, diseased, insane or criminal children within their state boundaries.  Using these state laws as models, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Ohio, North and South Dakota passed similar laws within five years.

Child Labor Reform In 1832 New England unions condemn child labor and reform against it.



The New England Association of Farmers, Mechanics and Other

Workingmen resolve that “Children should not be allowed to labor in the factories from morning till night, without any time for healthy recreation and mental culture,” for it “endangers their . . . well-being and health”  1836 Early trade unions propose state minimum age laws 

Union members at the National Trades’ Union Convention make the first

formal, public proposal recommending that states establish minimum ages for factory work

 1836 First state child labor law 

Massachusetts requires children under 15 working in factories to attend school at

least 3 months/year  1842 States begin limiting children’s work days 

Massachusetts limits children’s work days to 10 hours; other states soon pass

similar laws—but most of these laws are not consistently enforced  1876 Labor movement urges minimum age law 

Working Men’s Party proposes banning the employment of children under the age

of 14  1881 Newly formed AFL supports state minimum age laws 

The first national convention of the American Federation of Labor passes a

resolution calling on states to ban children under 14 from all gainful employment

Development of Foster Care System  The Foster care systems of both the United States and Great Britain developed in the 1853. The US system focused on local child placement within the state, rather than beyond state borders.

 Legislation establishing the Children’s Bureau (first conceived by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1905-1906) was

passed and signed in 1910-1911 and became effective in 1912 under President Taft. The bill emphasized that the Children’s Bureau would investigate and report on issues from all parts of

the country. The Bureau was not to encroach on the rights of the states and would not eliminate the duty of the states to deal with the child welfare issues within their jurisdictions. The Bureau would effectuate the federal government's duty to make information available to the various states, supporting them as they cared for children within their boundaries.

H O T RO C - E VA LUAT I O N P RO M P T R E S P O N D T O T H E P R O M P T I N A C O M P L E T E PA R AG R A P H

Do you believe that the Children’s Aid Society and Foundling Hospitals worked for the best interests of the children? What were the strengths and weaknesses of

these programs? Have we improved upon them in the 21stcentury? Explain.

RESOURCES  Brace, Charles Loring. Little Laborers of New York City. Harper’s

Magazine, August 1873.  Holt, Marilyn Irvin. The Orphan Trains; Placing Out In America. (Omaha, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press), 1992.

 Trammell, Rebecca. Orphan Trains Myths and Legal Reality. The Modern America, Fall 2009.