Charles Loring Brace The Children's Aid Society

Around 1830, the number of homeless children in New York City suddenly grew. By 1850, there were an estimated 30,000 homeless children living on the streets of New York City. At the time, New York City’s population was only 500,000. This increase in homeless children was due to many things. Some children living on the streets were orphans due to their parents dying from diseases, others had parents that just couldn’t take care of them for a multitude of reasons. In 1853, a young minister named Charles Loring Brace became very concerned with this amount of homeless children living on the streets, so he founded the Children’s Aid Society. The Children’s Aid Society is a private, child welfare nonprofit in New York City. Brace and his team attempted

First the agents put up notices in towns along the railroad announcing the time and date that a trainload of children would be arriving. A CAS (Children's Aid Society) agent selected a group of people to choose parents for the children. This group usually included a doctor, a teacher, a business owner, a minister, and a newspaper reporter. Once the train arrived in the towns the children were cleaned up first.

“When the children were near a stop they changed their clothes and washed their face. Girls wore new dresses, while boys wore white shirts, neckties and blazers. The children were urged to make a good impression.” -("The Orphan Train." tackk, tackk.com/04pejp.)

They were sometimes given small suitcases too. The agents helped them with all of this and then escorted them to the showing place. The children would stand on boxes to be seen by crowds of people in an open area who were looking for a child to adopt. They did things to impress the crowd such as singing, reciting poems, and dancing. Once chosen, a child would go home with their new family, but before that the agents made the new family sign a contract that said that they would care for the child as their own. Though sometimes that contract was easily

The majority of the children were given great home.

"The orphan trains did help some children find safe, loving homes. Willie Dunnaway was welcomed by a kind Arkansas couple who longed for a child. 'I became the luckiest boy on earth,' he wrote. 'I was adopted by Charles W. Dunnaway and his wife, Maggie Dunnaway.'" -(pg. 37 Holly Littlefield) (362.7 Lit)

After a child was adopted the agents who were previously responsible for them would check in on them at least once a year. This system was made to make sure that the families were treating the children nicely and treating them as if they were their own. This was all agreed upon on a contract when the children were adopted. Though as years went on the agents didn't have the time to keep checking in on every child every year. CAS agents were supposed to visit the children every year to check on them, but as the program grew bigger that became difficult. CAS sometimes had no idea how the children were doing in their new homes. But some agents did do their job well and documented all of the orphans that they