Exploratory Essay

The child welfare has had a major impact on children lives throughout decades. The Poor laws was designed to help the poor and their family. Some suggest that The Poor laws basically mandated the community to care for their poor whom were unable to work. Those that could work were expected to do so (Stern, Axinn, 8th edition). This law led to family suffering as well as their children. Many children were expected to work to help their family, because they were not covered under the Poor laws. This eventually led to nay children being removed from the home, because their parents were unable to take care of them. In contrast, other children whom were born outside of marriage were viewed as “filius hilius” which means children on no one. This

The goal of the Children Aid Society of New York immediate focus was on the emotional need of children. They wanted to find children a home. The Children Aid Society of New York placed 4, 614 children on the Orphan train where they were taking to the South to find a home. This benefited some children, because they were adopted by good families that took care of them. For the majority of children this became a nightmare. Many children were viewed as money. Individuals would wait for the train to arrive full of children to adopt them to put them to labor work. This specifically affected many African American and immigrant children because they were the majority of the orphan children, because they were poor. At thus punt many children were taking away from the home purposely to be put in the Orphan train and sale to families. Families would wait for the Orphan train to arrive with children to look for the strongest children to adopt then and put then to labor work. Children become a working engine to many people in the America. (Stern, Axinn, 8th edition). This traumatized many children that still remember being placed in the train as we saw in the video we watched in class. The system was not designed to help the children to placed them in a better home, but as a profit for many farm