Filling a gap in the history of young people, Kline researched the
orphan trains that "transported a reported two hundred thousand children from the East Coast to the Midwest between 1854 and 1929.
The book has roots in real
orphan trains that once relocated orphaned children.
The
orphan trains and Indian boarding schools of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in the US, to mention only two examples, were also religiously motivated.
In "The Gift," set in Jersey City in 1877, a desperate young mother gives up her daughter to the infamous
Orphan Trains.
Marilyn has adopted May 4, 2012 through the National
Orphan Train Complex as Teresa Martin Day - this was the day that Teresa first arrived in Hays, Kansas, via the
orphan trains.
The
Orphan Trains and Newsboys of New York" tells the story of the fate of many children in the early twentieth century, and how the Children's Aid Society sought to help these young people through their early lives.
Kim Vogel Sawyer is a prolific author of numerous Christian-themed novels with personal ties to the
Orphan Trains through a much-loved grandmother.
Some topics covered include the Alamo, Indian boarding schools, the
orphan trains, and the women of the westward movement.
Hillary and her friends always are on the lookout for
orphan trains and strain to catch any glimpse of the children inside the passenger cars.
The
orphan trains moved children from orphanages and inner city poverty to farm families, marking the recognized beginning of foster care and adoption in this country.
The children selected to ride the
orphan trains left behind lives of abandonment, crime, disease, starvation, and a pervasive environment of physical and mental cruelty.
One man's vision of rescue became the famous
Orphan Trains program, and Stephen O'Connor's history and biography focus on one Christian minister Charles Loring Brace, the man who created the Children's Aid Society to handle these children more humanely.
