New York CityOrphan train movementUp to 30,000 homeless children in one city, in peacetime. Where were their parents?From 1854 to 1929 the trains moved about 200,000 children. In 1850 there were an estimated 10,000 to 30,000 homeless children in New York City alone.
Photo: Tudor Costache · CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikimedia Commons
Orphan Trains · Centre Wellington, Canada
Wellington County House of Industry and Refuge
The open question
A whole farm for the county's poor. Who ended up here, and how did they lose everything?
On the record
Constructed in 1877, the site operated as a poorhouse and farm until 1947, and as an old age home until 1971. The House of Industry was initially designed to accommodate 65 residents, offering admission to the "virtuous and respectable poor". The main feature of the site is the residential building, a two-storey stone masonry building designed in an Italianate style by Guelph architect Victor Stewart in 1876.
Sources
More from Orphan Trains
New York CityOrphan train movementUp to 30,000 homeless children in one city, in peacetime. Where were their parents?From 1854 to 1929 the trains moved about 200,000 children. In 1850 there were an estimated 10,000 to 30,000 homeless children in New York City alone.
Dowagiac, MichiganFirst orphan train stop, DowagiacA train of children shows up and families pick them at the station. Who checked where they went?In 1854 Dowagiac was the final stop for the first group of orphans brought west from New York; children were dropped off and taken in at the depot.
Concordia, KansasNational Orphan Train ComplexChildren stood on a stage and said their names. How many lost those names afterwards?A museum in the restored Union Pacific depot. Some children were walked from the depot into a playhouse and put on stage, said by the museum to be the origin of 'up for adoption'.
New York CityChildren's Aid SocietyBusinessmen paid to send city children to farms. Who needed the labour, and who gained?Founded in 1853 by Charles Loring Brace with money from New York businessmen; one of the three charities behind the orphan trains.