CHICKASHA – Few people today know much, if anything, about the largest child migration in history. Between 1854 and 1929, more than 250,000 orphans and unwanted children were taken out of New York City and given away at train stations across America.
The Chickasha Public Library invites the community to learn the stories of these children during the “Riders on the Orphan Train” program scheduled for Oct. 26 at 6:30 p.m.
The program is expected to last approximately two hours and will be held in the library’s meeting room. Admission is free, open to all ages, and registration is not required.
“The ‘Riders on the Orphan Train’ program is interesting and engaging,” library Director Lillie Huckaby said. “The presenters bring history to life and make it personable by telling the stories of real people who rode these trains.”
Children were sent to every state in the continental U.S.; the last train went to Sulphur Springs, Texas, in 1929.
This “placing out” system was originally organized by Methodist minister Charles Loring Brace and the Children’s Aid Society of New York. Brace’s mission was to rid the streets and overcrowded orphanages of homeless children and provide them with an opportunity to find new homes.
Many of the children were not orphans but were “surrendered” by parents too impoverished to keep them. The New York Foundling Hospital, a Catholic organization, also sent children to be placed in Catholic homes. This 76-year experiment in child relocation is filled with the entire spectrum of human emotion and reveals a great deal about the successes and failures of the American Dream, Huckaby said.
The multimedia program combines live music by Phillip Lancaster and Alison Moore, a video montage with archival photographs and interviews of survivors, and a dramatic reading of the 2012 novel “Riders on the Orphan Train” by author Alison Moore.
Although the program is about children, it is designed to engage audiences of all ages and to inform, inspire and raise awareness about this little-known part of history.
Local relatives and acquaintances of Orphan Train Riders are invited to attend and share their stories with the audience.
The “Riders of the Orphan Train” program is paid for by a grant from Oklahoma Humanities, a nonprofit that is the state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.