In the mid-1800s, thousands of emigrants left their native countries and extended families to seek opportunity in young and prosperous America.  When the immigrants arrived, however, they often found a life of hardship, much different than what they envisioned.  Many of the immigrants died leaving single parent families that weren’t able to support themselves and untold orphaned and abandoned children in need of homes.  From 1854 to 1929 an estimated 250,000 children rode “orphan trains” from overpopulated areas of the East Coast to rural America to find new homes. 

Some of the children were orphaned, others were abandoned, and others were put on the trains by their parents, who hoped they were going to a better life.  When the orphan trains stopped at various depots, the children were placed on the platform and selected by their new families.  Due to lack of regulation, follow up checks on the children’s well-being were not usually made.