Orphan Trains

I've been keeping up with my reading blog much better than this one. I had to share a book over here because I didn't know that this was even a part of Michigan history. How did I miss this?

A Faraway Home: An Orphan Train Story by Jamie Panagopoulos
Genre: Children's Literature, Historical Fiction Rating: (out of 10): 8
While I've been doing research for my final project, I've discovered that there were orphan trains. I've been pretty fascinated by this information, and plan on teaching a unit around it this year or next. This book was interesting to me more because of the topic than because it was any great piece of writing. In the late 1800s to early 1900s, Aid Societies scooped orphans up off the streets of New York and Boston, cleaned them up, put them on trains, and shipped them out to the western states (Michigan largely included). There, the kids would get off the trains and families would come to pick out a child to adopt. They would largely help out on the farm. I just think it's fascinating.

Apparently about 250,000 children were moved from urban New York/Boston to homes in Michigan and other places!