Book Discussion – The Orphan Trains: Placing Out in America

The railroad significantly changed life in the United States; register for the series by calling or stopping by the library. Barb Baker returns to facilitate discussion.

Monday, May 2 – 6 p.m. – “The Orphan Trains: Placing Out in America” by Marilyn Irwin Holt

Offering another view of the railroad… From 1850 to 1930 America witnessed a unique emigration and resettlement of at least 200,000 children and several thousand adults, primarily from the East Coast to the West. This ‘placing out,’ an attempt to find homes for the urban poor, was best known by the ‘orphan trains’ that carried the children. Holt carefully analyzes the system, initially instituted by the New York Children’s Aid Society in 1853.