Orphan Train Leads to Foster Care, Jimmy Wayne Keynotes Milestone Event

This mattered to Jimmy because he was raised in foster care and the foster care system is the direct result of the Orphan Train Movement that took place in the U. S. from 1854-1929.

Jimmy, a New York Times bestselling author, keynote speaker, and award-winning recording artist, was invited to anchor the celebration of The Orphan Train Complex. The complex houses a museum and research center dedicated to the preservation of the stories and artifacts of those who were part of the movement.

“I was honored to speak and perform during the Orphan Train’s 10th-anniversary celebration. I got to meet a few descendants of ‘Orphan Train Riders.’ These ‘riders’ were orphans who lived on the streets of New York City in the 1800’s and were loaded on trains and transported across America to all states. The train stopped at depots where ranchers, farmers, and families adopted them — they gave these kids homes,” Jimmy says.

“The Orphan Train ceased operation in 1929 because the U.S. government received complaints from locals in depot towns accusing the children of being troublemakers,” he says, “that’s when the foster care system began. Many of these children grew up to be very productive citizens because they were invested in. Some of them became Governors of states and created organizations and programs that helped orphans.”

“I encourage anyone interested in American history or involved in the lives of kids — especially those vulnerable and valuable youth in foster care and/or waiting to be adopted — to visit the Orphan Train Museum. It offers a unique look at our country’s past through the eyes of
thousands of forgotten children.”

The Orphan Train Movement was a supervised welfare program that transported orphaned and homeless children from crowded Eastern cities of the United States to foster homes located largely in rural areas of the Midwest. The orphan trains operated between 1854 and 1929, relocating an estimated 200,000 orphaned, abandoned, or homeless children.

Three charitable institutions — Children’s Village (founded 1851 by 24 philanthropists), the Children’s Aid Society (established 1853 by Charles Loring Brace) and later, the New York Foundling Hospital — endeavored to help these children. The first of the two noted institutions developed programs that placed homeless, orphaned, and abandoned city children, who numbered an estimated 30,000 in New York City alone in the 1850s, in foster homes throughout the country.

The children were transported to their new homes on trains that were labeled “orphan trains” or “baby trains.” This relocation of children ended in the 1920s with the beginning of organized foster care in America.

Jimmy Wayne tells his gritty, tragedy-to-triumph life-story in his 2014 New York Times bestselling memoir, Walk To Beautiful: The Power of Love and a Homeless Kid Who Found The Way.

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