Placing out

By the mid-1800s critics called orphan asylums and almshouses bad places to raise children, and asylums began placing children in private homes instead. Charles Loring Brace of the Children's Aid Society made it a large program, and the orphan trains were its best known form. As many as 30 New York City orphanages took part.

Placements were often informal, and many children worked as farm or household help. A child placed out might be indentured, which gave no inheritance rights, or adopted, which did; families often mixed up the two.