I attended a program on "The Orphan Trains"

The program was given at yesterdays meeting of the Northeast Louisiana Genealogical and Historical Society. I was familiar with the story of the Orphan Trains but appreciated the program.

The Orphan Train story is the story of a very large American experiment. Due to unsettled times and massive numbers of immigrants there were large numbers of orphans in the United States. It is estimated that there were 30,000 homeless children on the streets of New York in the 1850s. Between 1853 and 1930 some 250,000 homeless children were put on trains and sent from New York and the East to the mid West to be placed in homes needing labor. Many were adopted. I am somewhat familiar with what the children went through. I was placed in institutional boys homes twice as a young boy. I ran away from one in the middle of the night.

I only cried two or three times during the program.