Travelers on the Orphan Train
The words abandoned, abused, and orphaned do not sound sweet upon the ear. They are heartbreaking when the word children follows them. New York City was a magnate for European immigrants to America. Many never got beyond that city, which grew to accommodate them. As their resources dwindled, the impoverished immigrants inhabited the baser parts of the city, known as the slums. So many people from so many places massed together, creating a breeding ground for pestilence, which laid waste to many families. By the 1850s, the slums became the unhappy home of legions of orphans, whose parents had died or abandoned them. As the great War Between the States fired up in the early 1860s, this matter was made worse when so many men of immigrant families were compelled to enlist to fight a war in order to get money to feed their families. Many of those men were killed or maimed them beyond repair, spawning more orphans to roam the slums in search of scraps of food. Survival was the daily trial of an orphan.