2. Children and Homelessness in New York 1850’s to the Early 1900’s
The homeless children living in New York ranged in age from about six to
eighteen, and had little hope of having a successful future.
They lived in New York City's streets and slums, and served as cheap labor for
the newspapers, as shoe shiners, and as errand boys (and girls).
3. The Children’s Aid Society
Charles Loring Brace was the founder of The Children's Aid Society, one
of the first societies of its kind that worked to place homeless children in
foster families.
He also held Christmas dinners for the homeless children at the newsboy lodging homes, and
Theodore Roosevelt, a young New York police commissioner at the time ,could be seen at some
of these dinners, as his father was a co-founder with Brace of the Children’s Aid Society.
4. The Orphan Trains
With an estimated 30,000 homeless children in New York, Brace proposed a solution that would take these
children out of the city to live and work on farms out west. He proposed to ship these children via train
across the U.S. to be placed in foster care families.
The older children would be paid for their services and would provide needed help to people on their farms.
The Orphan Train Movement lasted from 1853 to the early 1900s, and more than 120,000
children were placed. New and controversial at the time, this system is now recognized as the beginning
of the foster care system in the United States. (Bowery Boys New York City podcast
http://www.facebook.com/Boweryboys accessed 12-9-11).
