In the 1850s, there were about 30,000 homeless children living on the streets in New York City. Today, “orphan” refers to a child whose parents both died, but in the 1850s, “orphan” also referred to a homeless child.

New York City was overcrowded because thousands of new immigrants arrived in New York each month from countries all over the world. They moved to New York to find a better life. Unfortunately, there weren’t enough jobs for all these people in New York. Without jobs, many immigrants lived in abject poverty. Impoverished families often lived in unhealthy and overcrowded conditions. Many got sick and died and others didn’t have enough money to feed all of their children. Families in these sad situations often gave one or more of their children to an orphanage.

Thousands of children lived on the street in New York City. With no one to care for them, these children sold newspapers, shined shoes, or sold flowers to make money. Others picked pockets, which means they stole money from people to buy food.

A man named Charles Loring Brace wanted to find a way to help New York’s orphans, so he started the Children’s Aid Society. He realized that many farmers needed help on their farms out west. The orphans could work for the farmers and the farmers would give the orphans homes. The society sent the children west by train. These trains became known as Orphan Trains even though they didn’t fill up the trains with orphans. The society sent the children in groups of around 10–30 to different locations across the country.

The Children’s Aid Society sent out notices to different towns across the West before it sent the orphans. The society notified the towns of the coming orphans and explained that the orphans needed good homes. The trains stopped in different towns along the way. They put the orphans up on a stage for families to get a good look at them. This is where we get the term “putting a child up for adoption.” The townsfolk chose they children they wanted based on how the children looked. They looked in the children’s mouths, checked their muscles, and made them do pushups to see if they were healthy. If a husband and wife wanted a child, they had to sign a form. They had to agree to give the child an education—the child had to go to school for at least four months per year. They had to give the child a home, food, and a good upbringing.

Families also wrote to the Children’s Aid Society to request an orphan. A family could ask for a six-year-old boy with brown hair and blue eyes. The society would find a boy who fit that description and send him to that family.

Sadly, brothers and sisters were often separated. Most families didn’t want to adopt more than one child at a time. The best these siblings could hope for was to all be adopted by families in the same town.

Between 1854 and 1929, around 250,000 children went west on the Orphan Trains. It is estimated that about two million Americans descend from these orphans.