Throughout generations

Throughout generations, America has went through drastic changes to become the country it is today. A man by the name, Charles L. Brace, had a goal to get the underprivileged kids off the streets, wanting to give them skills and opportunities to have productive lives. During the 1850s there were thousands of children living on the streets of several major cities. According to sources, the children were in “search of food, shelter, and money and sold rags, matches, and newspapers just to survive.” The children formed “gangs for protection” because life on the street was dangerous and they were often mistreated. Children would arrested, as little as the age of five, according to the National Orphan Train Complex, and put them in “lock up facilities with adult criminals”. Determined to solve the situation, the Children’s Aid Society and the New York Foundling Hospital created a program to take children off of the streets of New York and place them in homes in the West of America rather than allowing them to continue to be taken advantage of on the streets. Because the children were transported by train to their new homes, the saying, “orphan trains”, began being used.