Have you ever heard anything about America’s orphan trains? Not many have, but orphan trains are a fascinating solution to a problem of homeless children.

During the early years of the 20th century, there were literally thousands of homeless children roaming aimlessly on the streets of New York City. The Children’s Aid Society (CAS), an organization which still exists to benefit children today, developed a method for finding loving and wholesome homes for many of these children. The CAS organized small groups of children to be transported to states in the Midwest and the West. These children were placed in foster homes or adoptive homes on farms and in rural communities. To care for the children, the CAS recruited teachers to escort them, conduct background checks on the prospective caretakers, and make periodic checks on the children’s progress.

Andrea Warren has documented the phenomena of the Orphan Trains very diligently in her book, We Rode the Orphan Trains, available through amazon.com. You can also read a chapter about one of the CAS teachers, Clara Comstock, in my first book, Chalkboard Champions.