This is the second book by Mrs. Inskeep that breaks new ground with respect to the estimated 200,000 poor and abandoned orphaned children who were shipped from New York City orphanages to western families for adoption between 1853 and 1929. These children were placed primarily by the New York Foundling Hospital (NYFH) and the Children's Aid Society (CAS) and are now referred to as "Orphan Train Riders." Information as to the identities of a large number of these children has been preserved in federal and state censuses taken between 1855 and 1925, as well as in the 1890 New York City Police Census, and represents a potential boon to the descendants of these foundlings. This book, the sequel to Mars. Inskeep's 1995 work on the orphans from the New York Foundling Hospital, treats the residents of the Children's Aid Society.

"From 1850 to 1930 America witnessed a unique emigration and resettlement of at least 200,000 children and several thousand adults, primarily from the East Coast to the West. This 'placing out,' an attempt to find homes for the urban poor, was best known by the 'orphan trains' that carried the children. Holt carefully analyzes the system, initially instituted by the New York Children's Aid Society in 1853, tracking its imitators as well as the reasons for its creation and demise. She captures the children's perspective with the judicious use of oral histories, institutional records, and newspaper accounts. This well-written volume sheds new light on the multifaceted experience of children's immigration, changing concepts of welfare, and Western expansion. It is good, scholarly social history."—Library Journal

The true story behind Christina Baker Kline’s bestselling novel is revealed in this “engaging and thoughtful history” of the Children’s Aid Society (Los Angeles Times). A powerful blend of history, biography, and adventure, Orphan Trains fills a grievous gap in the American story. Tracing the evolution of the Children’s Aid Society, this dramatic narrative tells the fascinating tale of one of the most famous—and sometimes infamous—child welfare programs: the orphan trains, which spirited away some two hundred fifty thousand abandoned children into the homes of rural families in the Midwest. In mid-nineteenth-century New York, vagrant children, whether orphans or runaways, filled the streets. The city’s solution for years had been to sweep these children into prisons or almshouses. But a young minister named Charles Loring Brace took a different tack. With the creation of the Children’s Aid Society in 1853, he provided homeless youngsters with shelter, education, and, for many, a new family out west. The family matching process was haphazard, to say the least: at town meetings, farming families took their pick of the orphan train riders. Some children, such as James Brady, who became governor of Alaska, found loving homes, while others, such as Charley Miller, who shot two boys on a train in Wyoming, saw no end to their misery. Complete with extraordinary photographs and deeply moving stories, Orphan Trains gives invaluable insights into a creative genius whose pioneering, if controversial, efforts inform child rescue work today.

Community Schools in Action: Lessons from a Decade of Practice presents the Children's Aid Society's (CAS) approach to creating community schools for the 21st century. CAS began this work in New York City more than a decade ago and today operates thirteen such schools in the low-income neighborhoods of Washington Heights, East Harlem, and the Bronx. Through a technical assistance center operated by CAS, hundreds of other schools across the country and the world are adapting this model. The contributors to the volume supply invaluable information about the selected program components based on their own experiences working with community schools. They describe how and why CAS started its community school initiative and explain how CAS community schools are organized, integrated with the school system, sustained, and evaluated.

New York Foundling Hospital was formed on 11 October 1869 by Mary Irene Fitzgibbon, a member of the New York Sisters of Charity. It manages more than forty programs for infants, youths, young parents, and families, and emphasizes home care.

PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • A “vivid and devastating” (The New York Times) portrait of an indomitable girl—from acclaimed journalist Andrea Elliott “From its first indelible pages to its rich and startling conclusion, Invisible Child had me, by turns, stricken, inspired, outraged, illuminated, in tears, and hungering for reimmersion in its Dickensian depths.”—Ayad Akhtar, author of Homeland Elegies ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Atlantic, The New York Times Book Review, Time, NPR, Library Journal In Invisible Child, Pulitzer Prize winner Andrea Elliott follows eight dramatic years in the life of Dasani, a girl whose imagination is as soaring as the skyscrapers near her Brooklyn shelter. In this sweeping narrative, Elliott weaves the story of Dasani’s childhood with the history of her ancestors, tracing their passage from slavery to the Great Migration north. As Dasani comes of age, New York City’s homeless crisis has exploded, deepening the chasm between rich and poor. She must guide her siblings through a world riddled by hunger, violence, racism, drug addiction, and the threat of foster care. Out on the street, Dasani becomes a fierce fighter “to protect those who I love.” When she finally escapes city life to enroll in a boarding school, she faces an impossible question: What if leaving poverty means abandoning your family, and yourself? A work of luminous and riveting prose, Elliott’s Invisible Child reads like a page-turning novel. It is an astonishing story about the power of resilience, the importance of family and the cost of inequality—told through the crucible of one remarkable girl. Winner of the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize • Finalist for the Bernstein Award and the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award

The New York Juvenile Asylum (NYJA) was founded in 1851 by a group of prominent businessmen and professionals concerned about vagrancy among poor children in New York City. It was designed to house, educate, reform, and indenture children who were homeless, truant, or convicted of petty crimes in New York City. The NYJA being an alternative to the punitive House of Refuge where more hardened young criminals (incarcerated alongside much older adults) were being sent. Most children accepted into the NYJA were between the ages of seven and fifteen, but children both younger and older were accepted at times. The NYJA relocated to 176th Street between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues in 1856. By the end of 1919 over 42,000 children had been admitted to the Asylum. About 6,000 were sent West on orphan trains in what is now referred to as America's Orphan Train Movement. The names in this volume represent over five thousand children who lived in the New York Juvenile Asylum, as well as its House of Reception (where applicable), between 1855 and 1925. The names were extracted from the following enumerations conducted at the Asylum and House of Reception: the 1860, 1870, 1880, 1900, 1910, and 1920 federal censuses; and the New York State censuses of 1855, 1905, 1915, and 1925. The censuses are arranged chronologically and the children listed alphabetically for each census. The descriptions vary from census to census; however, in virtually all cases they provide the individual's name, race, sex, age, and state or country of birth. Also included for several of the censuses is the state or country of birth for the parents of each child. In a couple of the censuses the "residence when admitted" (to the Asylum) is listed for each child.