Orphan Train Bibliography

There is plenty of literature on the Orphan Train and this page provides a bibliography of books with good accurate information on the Orphan Train. There are also many well-written fiction books about the Orphan Train. Most research on the early years of the Children’s Aid Society and the Orphan Train can begin with Charles Loring Brace’s book “The Dangerous Classes of New York…” and “The Life and Letters of Charles Loring Brace.” The following bibliography is not complete and we will continue to add relevant materials to it. 

Non-Fiction

Brace, Charles Loring. The Dangerous Classes of New York and Twenty Years Work Among Them. New York: Wynkoop & Hallenbeck Publishers, 1872.

Brace, Emma, ed. The Life of Charles Loring Brace: Chiefly Told In His Own Letters. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1894.

Charles River Editors. The Orphan Train Movement: The History of the Program That Relocated Homeless Children Across America. Create Space Independent Publishing Platform, 2016.

Holt, Marilyn Irvin. The Orphan Trains: Placing Out In America. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1992.

O’Connor, Stephen. Orphan Trains: The Story of Charles Loring Brace and the Children He Saved and Failed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001.

Warren, Andrea. Orphan Train Rider: One Boy’s True Story. New York: Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt, 1998.

Warren, Andrea. We Rode the Orphan Trains. New York: Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt, 2004.

Fiction

Kline, Christina Baker. Orphan Train. William Morrow Publishing, 2013.

Kline, Christina Baker. Orphan Train Girl. William Morrow Publishing, 2017.

Panagapolous, Janie Lynn. A Faraway Home: An Orphan Train Story. EDCO Publishing, 2006.

Schafer, Keith. The Train Part 1: Escape From Hell’s Kitchen. Create Space Independent Publishing Platform, 2013.