Great Plains Studies, Center for
Date of this Version
1995
Abstract
One of the most haunting stories of the American West is the legend of the "orphan trains." Relating the practice of taking homeless children from the teeming cities and resettling them in the nation's heartland where they could grow and prosper as youngsters should, the story tacitly invokes some of the most potent of American myths-the Turner safety-valve theory, the Horatio Alger tale of the self-made person, and, more darkly, the lingering traces of Social Darwinism. The Orphan Trains strives to set the record straightnot to debunk the legend, but to give it its proper niche in western history. Emphasizing the New York Children's Aid Society but giving attention to other agencies, it explores the placing-out movement from its origins in the 1850s to its disappearance in the late 1920s, providing an account satisfying for nonspecialists yet bolstered with primary bibliography enough to aid specialists in deeper inquiries.
Comments
Published in Great Plains Quarterly 15:2 (Spring 1995). Copyright © 1995 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska-Lincoln.