The Orphan Trains

with FRANK McKENNA

The orphan train program was a welfare program that transported infants and children from crowded Eastern cities of the U.S. to foster homes located largely in rural areas of the Midwest and upstate New York. The program operated between 1854 and 1929 and relocated approximately 200,000 children. The co-founders of the movement claimed that these children were orphaned, abandoned, abused, or homeless; in fact, most were the children of new immigrants, many of them Irish, poor, and destitute. Although there were criticisms of the program—including ineffective screening of caretakers, insufficient follow-ups on placements, and the view that many of the children were used strictly as farm labor—some of the placed children grew up in loving homes.

Frank McKenna, a former president and current director of the Forum, is also one of its charter members. The director of the Seaford Public Library in Seaford, NY, he has worked in the public library field for over 30 years. His late great-aunt Margaret (McKenna) Loftus-Taylor was a rider on a baby train.