Riders on the Orphan Train February 18, 2011

The free public program, Riders on the Orphan Train, funded by The New Mexico Humanities Council is coming to the Las Cruces Railroad Museum at 7pm on Friday, February 18th. This historical presentation is designed to inform, entertain, and move audiences of all origins and ages. The program combines storytelling, music, video and informal discussion with a question and answer period to bring awareness about this little-known chapter of the largest child migration in history.

Between 1854 and 1929 over 250,000 orphans and unwanted children were taken out of New York City and given away at train stations in every state in America. Originally organized by the Children’s Aid Society of New York, the mission was to rid the streets and overcrowded orphanages of homeless children and provide them with an opportunity to find new homes in the developing Midwest. Many of the children were not orphans but “surrendered” by parents too impoverished to keep them. This nearly eighty year experiment in child migration is filled with the entire spectrum of human emotion and reveals a great deal about the successes and failures of the American Dream. Of particular interest to the New Mexico audience will be the discovery of the part this state played in the “placing out” movement.

This presentation was originally created by novelist/humanities scholar Alison Moore and musician/ producer Phil Lancaster as an outreach program for the Orphan Train Heritage Society of America, Inc. The two have been touring the U.S. since 1998; this is their second tour to New Mexico for presentations in selected museums and libraries. Their tour this time will take them to Truth or Consequences, Las Cruces, Deming, Carlsbad, and Farmington.

The Las Cruces Railroad Museum is located at 351 N. Mesilla Street, at the intersection of Las Cruces Ave.
For more information, please call the museum at 575-647-4480.