Children's Aid, formerly the Children's Aid Society, is a private child welfare

nonprofit A nonprofit organization (NPO), also known as a nonbusiness entity, nonprofit institution, not-for-profit organization, or simply a nonprofit, is a non-governmental (private) legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public, or so ...

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

founded in 1853 by

Charles Loring Brace Charles Loring Brace (June 19, 1826 – August 11, 1890) was an American philanthropist who contributed to the field of social reform. He is considered a father of the modern foster care movement and was most renowned for starting the Orphan T ...

. With an annual budget of over $100 million, 45 citywide sites, and over 1,200 full-time employees, Children's Aid is one of America's oldest and largest children's nonprofits. Children's Aid helps tens of thousands of

disadvantaged The "disadvantaged" is a generic term for individuals or groups of people who: * Face special problems such as physical disability, physical or mental disorder, mental disability * Lack money or economic supportKingdom of Nepal: Economic and Soc ...

children succeed annually, by providing comprehensive services of

adoption Adoption is a process whereby a person assumes the parenting of another, usually a child, from that person's biological or legal parent or parents. Legal adoptions permanently transfer all rights and responsibilities, along with filiation, fro ...

and

foster care Foster care is a system in which a minor has been placed into a ward, group home ( residential child care community or treatment centre), or private home of a state- certified caregiver, referred to as a "foster parent", or with a family mem ...

, after-school and weekend programs,

arts The arts or creative arts are a vast range of human practices involving creativity, creative expression, storytelling, and cultural participation. The arts encompass diverse and plural modes of thought, deeds, and existence in an extensive ...

, camps,

early childhood education Early childhood education (ECE), also known as nursery education, is a branch of Education sciences, education theory that relates to the teaching of children (formally and informally) from birth up to the age of eight. Traditionally, this is ...

, events,

family support Family support is the support of families with a member with a disability, which may include a child, an adult, or even the parent in the family. In the United States, family support includes "unpaid" or "informal" support by neighbors, families, ...

medical Medicine is the science and Praxis (process), practice of caring for patients, managing the Medical diagnosis, diagnosis, prognosis, Preventive medicine, prevention, therapy, treatment, Palliative care, palliation of their injury or disease, ...

mental health Mental health is often mistakenly equated with the absence of mental illness. However, mental health refers to a person's overall emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It influences how individuals think, feel, and behave, and how t ...

, and dental,

juvenile justice Juvenile court, also known as young offender's court or children's court, is a tribunal having special authority to pass judgements for crimes committed by children who have not attained the age of majority. In most modern legal systems, chi ...

, legal advocacy, special initiatives, sports and recreation, and

youth development Positive youth development (PYD) programs are designed to optimize youth developmental progress. This is sought through a positivistic approach that emphasizes the inherent potential, strengths, and capabilities youth hold. PYD differs from other ...

programs.

History

In 1853, Children's Aid was founded by

Yale College Yale College is the undergraduate college of Yale University. Founded in 1701, it is the original school of the university. Although other Yale schools were founded as early as 1810, all of Yale was officially known as Yale College until 1887, ...

graduate and philanthropist,

, with financial support from New York businessmen and philanthropists, to ensure the physical and emotional well-being of children, and provide them with the support needed to become successful adults. Brace was appalled by the thousands of abandoned, abused, and orphaned children living in the slums and on the streets of New York at the time. The only options available to such children at the time were begging, prostitution, petty thievery, and gang membership, or commitment to

jail A prison, also known as a jail, gaol, penitentiary, detention center, correction center, correctional facility, or remand center, is a facility where people are imprisoned under the authority of the state, usually as punishment for various cr ...

almshouse An almshouse (also known as a bede-house, poorhouse, or hospital) is charitable housing provided to people in a particular community, especially during the Middle Ages. They were often built for the poor of a locality, for those who had held ce ...

s, and

orphanage An orphanage is a residential institution, total institution or group home, devoted to the care of orphans and children who, for various reasons, cannot be cared by their biological families. The parents may be deceased, absent, or abusi ...

s. Brace believed that institutional care stunted and destroyed children. His view was only work, education, and a strong family life could help them develop into self-reliant citizens. Brace knew that American pioneers could use help settling the

American West The Western United States (also called the American West, the Western States, the Far West, the Western territories, and the West) is census regions United States Census Bureau As American settlement in the U.S. expanded westward, the mea ...

, and arranged to send the orphaned children to them. This became known as the Orphan Train Movement. The children were encouraged to break completely with the past and would arrive in a town where community leaders assembled interested townspeople for inspection and selection. The program was controversial, as some

abolitionist Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the political movement to end slavery and liberate enslaved individuals around the world. The first country to fully outlaw slavery was Kingdom of France, France in 1315, but it was later used ...

s viewed it as a form of slavery, while

pro-slavery Proslavery is support for slavery. It is sometimes found in the thought of ancient philosophers, religious texts, and in American and British writings especially before the American Civil War but also later through the 20th century. Arguments in ...

advocates saw it part of the abolitionist movement, since the labor provided by the children made slaves unnecessary. Some

Catholics The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

deemed the program to be

anti-Catholic Anti-Catholicism is hostility towards Catholics and opposition to the Catholic Church, its clergy, and its adherents. Scholars have identified four categories of anti-Catholicism: constitutional-national, theological, popular and socio-cul ...

, since a significant percentage of poor children in

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

were

Irish Catholic Irish Catholics () are an ethnoreligious group native to Ireland, defined by their adherence to Catholic Christianity and their shared Irish ethnic, linguistic, and cultural heritage.The term distinguishes Catholics of Irish descent, particul ...

, and would be raised outside of their faith once transported into the interior of the country. In response, the

Archdiocese of New York The Archdiocese of New York () is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or archdiocese of the Catholic Church located in the New York (state), State of New York. It encompasses the boroughs of Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island in New York ...

upgraded their own child-welfare programs, improving the parochial school system, building more Catholic orphanages, and creating a 114-acre (46-hectare) training center on

farmland Agricultural land is typically land ''devoted to'' agriculture, the systematic and controlled use of other forms of lifeparticularly the rearing of livestock and production of cropsto produce food for humans. It is generally synonymous with bot ...

the Bronx The Bronx ( ) is the northernmost of the five Boroughs of New York City, boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. It shares a land border with Westchester County, New York, West ...

, which they called the Catholic Protectory. From 1854 to the last train in 1929, more than 200,000 children rode the "Orphan Train" to new lives. The Orphan Train Heritage Society maintains an archive of riders' stories. The National Orphan Train Museum in Concordia, Kansas maintains records and also houses a research facility.

Development

Other child welfare innovations

Since originating the Orphan Train in 1853, Children's Aid has founded a series of child welfare innovations that have since become commonplace, such as: * some of the first industrial schools * the first parent-teacher associations * the first free

school lunch A school meal (whether it is a breakfast, lunch, or evening meal) is a meal provided to students and sometimes teachers at a school, typically in the middle or beginning of the school day. Countries around the world offer various kinds of schoo ...

programs * the first free dental clinics for children * the first day schools for

handicapped Disability is the experience of any condition that makes it more difficult for a person to do certain activities or have equitable access within a given society. Disabilities may be cognitive, developmental, intellectual, mental, physical, ...

children * the first

kindergarten Kindergarten is a preschool educational approach based on playing, singing, practical activities such as drawing, and social interaction as part of the transition from home to school. Such institutions were originally made in the late 18th cen ...

in the United States * the first

foster home Foster care is a system in which a underage, minor has been placed into a ward (law), ward, group home (Residential Child Care Community, residential child care community or treatment centre), or private home of a state-certified caregiver, ref ...

s * the first “fresh air” vacations, in which urban children visit host families in the country for the summer. *

toy drive A toy drive is a charity event that collects toys or money to be distributed to those in need. Overview This is usually for the celebration of Christmas. Volunteers are brought together to sort through toys to wrap and sort for age appropriatenes ...

s for children during the holidays In the 1980s Children's Aid created the first family court diversion programs, where

social workers Social work is an academic discipline and practice-based profession concerned with meeting the basic needs of individuals, families, groups, communities, and society as a whole to enhance their individual and collective well-being. Social work ...

meet with out-of-control children and their families in an attempt to find out of court solutions. In 1992, Children's Aid created the first "community school", a partnership with the

New York City Department of Education The New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE) is the department of the government of New York City that manages the city's public school system. The City School District of the City of New York (more commonly known as New York City Publ ...

where a full array of health, mental and after-school, weekend and summer programs are available to students at school. The Technical Assistance Center has helped visitors from all over the United States and more than 40 foreign countries learn how to apply "community school" concepts in their schools. In 2009, it was honored with a Village Award from the

Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation Village Preservation (formerly the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, or GVSHP) is a nonprofit organization that advocates for the architectural preservation and cultural preservation and opposes housing development in severa ...

for its Philip Coltoff Center in Greenwich Village (since razed for new residential development). In 2012, Children's Aid was rated 4/4 stars by charities rating organization

Charity Navigator Charity Navigator is a charity assessment organization that evaluates more than 230,000 charitable organizations based in the United States, operating as a 501(c)(3) organization. It provides insights into a nonprofit's financial stability, adh ...

for a record-breaking 12th consecutive year.

Leadership

In 1912, Charles Loring Brace Jr. was re-elected board secretary of the society founded by his father. Board Chair Emeriti include Edward Lamont Sr. and Edgar Koerner, with over thirty notable board members. In 2014, the Children's Aid board of trustees appointed Phoebe C. Boyer as its eleventh President and CEO and first female leader.

In popular culture

* Christina Baker Kline's "Orphan Train, a novel", a 2013 historical fiction which features main character Vivian Daly (Niamh) as a 9 year old Irish immigrant abandoned in New York after a family tragedy who is placed on board the train heading to Minnesota in 1929 by Children's Aid. Her journey through several foster homes to adulthood is shared with Molly, a present-day 17-year-old in foster care with her own issues with whom she forges a friendship. * Kate Manning's ''My Notorious Life'' (2014) predominantly features as main characters 1800s orphans who get selected from the street among children who must prostitute themselves for food by

for the

Orphan Train The Orphan Train Movement was a supervised welfare program that transported children from crowded Eastern cities of the United States to foster homes located largely in rural areas of the Midwestern United States, Midwest short on farming Child ...

, and eventually become

Lake Shore Drive Lake Shore Drive (officially Jean Baptiste Pointe du Sable Lake Shore Drive; also known as DuSable Lake Shore Drive, the Outer Drive, the Drive, LSD or DLSD) is a semi-limited access Limited-access highway, expressway that runs alongside the sh ...

(Chicago) and

Fifth Avenue Fifth Avenue is a major thoroughfare in the borough (New York City), borough of Manhattan in New York City. The avenue runs south from 143rd Street (Manhattan), West 143rd Street in Harlem to Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village. The se ...

residents. *The book "Last Train Home, an orphan train story" by Renée Wendinger is a historical novella describing the methods by which children were placed by the Children's Aid and the New York Foundling following the lives of two children of the train. *The book "Extra! Extra! The Orphan Trains and Newsboys of New York" by Renée Wendinger is an unabridged nonfiction resource book and pictorial history about the orphan trains. *The song by

Utah Phillips Bruce Duncan "Utah" Phillips (May 15, 1935 – May 23, 2008)
, KVMR, Nevada City, California, May 24, 2008. Retrieved 24 May 2008 ...

called "Orphan Train" has been performed by numerous modern bluegrass singers. *The book ''Gratefully Yours'' describes a nine-year-old girl's feelings about her new family who adopt her from the orphan train. *There is a ballet entitled ''Orphan Train'' presented by Covenant Ballet Theatre of Brooklyn, which tells the story of Brace and shows stories of orphans on the train. *Authors Al and Joanna Lacy have written an ''Orphan Trains Trilogy'', depicting the lives of fictional orphans. *The ballad "Rider On An Orphan Train", written by David Massengill, describes the inevitable tragedy of the separation of siblings in spite of the efforts to keep brothers and sisters together. *The book ''Train to Somewhere'' by Eve Bunting describes a fictional account of a girl's journey on the Orphan Train.

References

External links

Official website

* ttps://www.flickr.com/photos/n-yhs/collections/72157623964464144/ Digitized Records of the Children's Aid Societyat the

New-York Historical Society The New York Historical (known as the New-York Historical Society from 1804 to 2024) is an American history museum and library on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. The society was founded in 1804 as New York's first museum. It ...

. {{Authority control 1853 establishments in New York (state) 1853 establishments in the United States Organizations established in 1853 Non-profit organizations based in New York City Charities based in New York City Children's charities based in the United States Social care in the United States