Between 1854 and 1929, a quarter million abandoned babies and “street rats” (as the older children were referred to by police) left slums in New York, Boston, and other coastal cities aboard trains, headed for new lives in the country. Their experiences are recounted at the new National Orphan Train Complex in Concordia, Kansas, as well as in the new documentary, Placing Out, both sponsored by the Kansas Humanities Council. When the trains stopped, the children were paraded f