Explore the origins of the Orphan Train movement that took place at a time when there were no systems in place to help the poor and homeless in this video adapted from the documentary West by Orphan Train produced by Colleen Bradford Krantz and Clark Kidder. Educational resources created and published by Iowa PBS. Charles Loring Brace decided early in his life that he wanted to work with the homeless children of New York. He witnessed firsthand the poverty impacting children in New York and knew he had to take action. In 1853 he founded the Children’s Aid Society and the first Orphan Train left New York in 1854 with a goal of placing children in homes.