author
Charles Loring Brace
1826–1890
A pioneering social reformer, he helped change how America cared for poor and homeless children. He is best known for founding the Children’s Aid Society and launching the movement later called the Orphan Trains.
1 Audiobook
The Dangerous Classes of New York, and Twenty Years' Work Among Them
by Charles Loring Brace
About the author
Born in Connecticut in 1826, Charles Loring Brace became an American minister, writer, and reformer who focused on the lives of children in poverty. After seeing the harsh conditions faced by homeless and neglected children in New York City, he argued that they needed homes, schooling, and practical support rather than life in almshouses or institutions.
In 1853, he founded the Children’s Aid Society in New York City and served as its executive secretary for decades. Through the organization, he promoted lodging houses, education, work opportunities, and family placement for children. He became especially associated with the migration program later known as the Orphan Train movement, which sent many children from crowded eastern cities to homes in the American interior.
Brace’s ideas helped shape modern child welfare and foster care, even though parts of his work remain debated today. He died in 1890, but his influence can still be seen in the long history of child welfare reform in the United States.