Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0553169076, Paperback)

During the years from 1854 to 1929, the Children's Aid Society, founded by Charles Loring Brace, sent more than 100,000 children on orphan trains from the slums of New York City to new homes in the West. This placing-out program was so successful that other groups, such as the New York Foundling Hospital, followed the example. The Orphan Train Quartet was inspired by the true stories of these children, but the characters in the series, their adventures, and the dates of their arrival are entirely fictional. As for the historical figures who enter these stories - they very well could have been at the places described at the proper times to touch the lives of the children who came west on the orphan trains. The Orphan Train saga begins in 1856 in New York City, where Mrs. Kelly, a young widow, realizes that she cannot give her six children the life they deserve. Mrs. Kelly makes the ultimate sacrifice of love and sends them west on the orphan train to find better lives with new families.