Product Description

Studio: Pbs Release Date: 05/04/2009 Run time: 60 minutes

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #40460 in DVD
• Released on: 2006-06-13
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Color, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 60 minutes

Customer Reviews

the remarkable story of the orphan trains and the children who rode them
American Experience - The Orphan Trains tells the story of how The Children's Aid Society was formed in 1853 to help poor and often homeless children in New York City get a better life by sending them on long train rides to more rural parts of our nation. It was thought that if the children could escape the city they would have a better chance at a happy, normal life. We see how Charles Loring Brace founded the society when the only help available for children was a type of "orphan asylum" in which the children were taught skills so that they could earn money.

Brace desperately wanted a better way to help these children; he and his peers did not believe that the orphan asylums were teaching skills valuable enough to truly help the children. This program changed the lives of so many children--between 1853 and 1929, more than 150,000 abandoned, abused and orphaned children were taken from a life of poverty usually while living on the streets and begging for money, and sent, more often than not, to relatively stable homes where they could have a much better sense of family.

On the down side, however, children were essentially rounded up (the film doesn't say exactly how) and sent forcibly to other parts of the country by train where they hopefully had a real chance at a better childhood. Of course there's more to the story but I don't want to spoil it for you so I'll leave the rest out. You can rest assured that if this topic interests you, you won't be bored watching this film!

The real electricity of the film comes from invaluable interview footage in which now elderly people who rode orphan trains tell their most personal stories about their experiences both good and bad. The emotions these people display truly moved me and I could see that in some ways The Children's Aid Society had helped some while it had been insensitive to the emotional needs of other children.

The DVD comes with few extras; there is a type of advertisement for other features of the Public Broadcasting System website but unfortunately that's about it. However, this film is so good I can overlook it. Another reviewer mentions the fact that the photos and stories of these children are about white children only--what happened to African-American children and children of other races? I would have liked to know.

American Experience-The Orphan Trains is quite a powerful story and I recommend this for anyone interested in this topic.

PBS wins again!
This is a wonderful DVD to introduce students into this aspect of american history. I wish it could have been a little longer, perhaps had more interviews and stories as special features seperate from the main feature etc... so my students could use it as part of research. Anything made by PBS is always high quality and has resources on PBS.org.

The Orphan Trains
This was an amazing look at life in the late 1800's to early 1900's. My Grandfather was one of those orphans. He died before I was born, so I never got to meet him, but felt a connection with him while watching this DVD. It gave me a sense of what he must have gone through during his early life, and an appreciation of his adoptive parents, whom I also didn't know. They provided a good home for him, and a stable environment for him to grow up in. My Mother told me that he had been adopted, but I'm not sure she even knew the circumstances. A distant cousin recently told me about it. Thank you so much for providing this DVD.