Content warning: This section of the guide discusses child abuse and drug addiction.

By the mid-19th century, over 300,000 unhoused or neglected children roamed the streets of New York City. Charles Loring Brace saw their need and established the Children’s Aid Society in 1853. As part of this society, Loring placed thousands of children with families in other states, thus creating the Orphan Train Movement. This system ran from 1853 to the early 1890s and was designed to give children new lives and a better chance at happiness. Children were loaded onto trains, often without being informed that they were being sent to the West with the intention of placing them in adoptive homes. The movement is controversial today; it resulted in positive placements for many children but also subjected them to spectacle as they were examined by potential caregivers en route and sometimes placed in abusive homes or ostracized in their new towns. The Children’s Aid Society also established the nation’s first foster care system, which worked with birth and foster families to establish permanency for the children.

In the early 1900s, social agencies oversaw and screened potential foster families by keeping records and placing children with families based on their individual needs.