Friday, January 21st through Saturday, June 4th, 2022. Throughout the nineteenth century, immigration to eastern U.S. cities increased and the country's population was growing. The Industrial Revolution worsened the situation, with few institutions in place to care for the poor or indigent. The orphan train movement was an ambitious, yet controversial attempt to relocate orphaned children from overpopulated cities on the east coast, to foster homes in the rural American west.