The Orphan Train was a social experiment that transported children from crowded coastal cities of the United States to the country's Midwest for adoption. The orphan trains ran between 1854 and 1929, relocating an estimated 200,000 orphaned, abandoned, or homeless children. At the time the orphan train movement began, it was estimated that 30,000 vagrant children were living on the streets of New York City.

Two charity institutions, The Children's Aid Society (established by Charles Loring Brace) and The New York Foundling Hospital, determined to help these children. The two institutions developed a program that placed homeless city children into homes throughout the country. The children were transported to their new homes on trains which were eventually labeled “orphan trains.” This period of mass relocation of children in the United States is widely recognized as the beginning of documented foster care in America.

History

Brace believed that institutional care stunted and destroyed children. In his view, only work, education and a strong family life could help them develop into self-reliant citizens. Brace knew that American pioneers could use help settling the American West, so he arranged to send the orphaned children to pioneer families. "In every American community, especially in a western one, there are many spare places at the table of life," Brace wrote. "They have enough for themselves and the stranger too."

The children were encouraged to break completely with their past. They would typically arrive in a town where local community leaders had assembled interested townspeople. The townspeople would inspect the children and after brief interviews with the ones they wanted, take them home. After a trial period, some children became indentured servants to their host families, while most were adopted, formally or informally, as family members.

Between 1854 and 1929, more than 200,000 children rode the “Orphan Train” to new lives. The Orphan Train Heritage Society maintains an archive of riders' stories. The National Orphan Train Museum in Concordia, Kansas maintains records and also houses a research facility.

Two famous former orphan train riders are Governor John Green Brady of Alaska, and Governor Andrew Burke of North Dakota.

Program reception

The program was not without criticism. In its early days some abolitionists viewed it as a form of slavery, while some pro-slavery advocates saw it as part of the abolitionist movement, since the labor provided by the children helped to make slaves unnecessary.

Research facility

dedication celebration]] The National Orphan Train Museum and Research Center is located in Concordia, Kansas. The Museum and Research Center is dedicated to the preservation of the stories and artifacts of those who were part of the Orphan Train Movement from 1854-1929. The research center is located at the restored Union Pacific Railroad Depot in Concordia which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Services offered by the museum include rider research, educational material, and a collection of photos and other memorabilia.

Media references

Good Boy (Little Orphan at the Train), Norman Rockwell painting

Eddie Rode The Orphan Train, song by Jim Roll and covered by Jason Ringenberg

See also

Home children

References

National Orphan Train Museum

Orphan Train program on Public Broadcasting System

Additional research resource links

External links

The Orphan Train chat and song (re-aired 2/28/09) can be heard via http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/programs/2006/02/11/index.shtml

Category:Child welfare Category:Adoption history Category:Genealogy Category:Rail transport in the United States Category:Adoption, fostering, orphan care and displacement Category:History of New York City

Name	Utah Phillips
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Bruce Duncan Phillips
Birth date	May 15, 1935
Death date	May 23, 2008
Genre	Folk music
Occupation	Songwriter, performer, raconteur
Url	www.utahphillips.org

Bruce "Utah" Duncan Phillips (May 15, 1935 – May 23, 2008) was a labor organizer, folk singer, storyteller, poet and the "Golden Voice of the Great Southwest". He described the struggles of labor unions and the power of direct action, self-identifying as an anarchist. He often promoted the Industrial Workers of the World in his music, actions, and words.

Biography

Early years

Phillips was born in Cleveland, Ohio, to Edwin Deroger Phillips and Frances Kathleen Coates. He attended East High School in Salt Lake City, Utah. His father, Edwin Phillips, was a labor organizer, and his parents' activism influenced much of his life's work. Phillips was a card-carrying member of the Industrial Workers of the World, the "wobblies," headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Phillips rode the railroads, and wrote songs.

He served in the United States Army for three years beginning in 1956 (at the latest). Witnessing the devastation of post-war Korea greatly influenced his social and political thinking.

Career

Following service, he returned to Salt Lake City, Utah, and joined Ammon Hennacy from the Catholic Worker Movement in establishing a mission house of hospitality named after the activist Joe Hill. Phillips worked at the Joe Hill House for the next eight years, then ran for the U.S. Senate as a candidate of Utah's Peace and Freedom Party in 1968. He received 2,019 votes (0.5%) in an election won by Republican Wallace F. Bennett. He also ran for president of the United States in 1976 for the Do-Nothing Party.

He adopted the name U. Utah Phillips in emulation of country vocalist T. Texas Tyler.

Phillips met folk singer Rosalie Sorrels in the early 1950s, and remained a close friend of hers. It was Sorrels who started playing the songs that Phillips wrote, and through her his music began to spread. After leaving Utah in the late 1960s, he went to Saratoga Springs, New York, where he was befriended by the folk community at the Caffé Lena coffee house, where he became a staple performer throughout that decade.

Phillips was a proud member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW or Wobblies). His view of unions and politics were shaped by his parents, especially his Mom who was a labor organizer for the CIO. But Phillips was more of a Christian anarchist and a pacifist, so found the modern-day Wobblies to be the perfect fit for him, an iconoclast and artist. In recent years, perhaps no single person did more to spread the Wobbly gospel than Phillips, whose countless concerts were, in effect, organizing meetings for the cause of labor, unions, anarchism, pacifism, and the Wobblies. He was a tremendous interpreter of classic Wobbly tunes including "Hallelujah, I'm a Bum," "The Preacher and the Slave," and "Bread and Roses."

An avid trainhopper, Phillips recorded several albums of music related to the railroads, especially the era of steam locomotives. His first recorded album, Good Though!, is an example, and contains such songs as "Daddy, What's a Train?" and "Queen of the Rails" as well as what may be his most famous composition, "Moose Turd Pie" wherein he tells a tall tale of his work as a gandy dancer repairing track in the Southwestern United States desert.

In 1991 Phillips recorded, in one take, an album of song, poetry and short stories entitled I've Got To Know, inspired by his anger at the first Gulf War. The album includes "Enola Gay," his first composition written about the United States' atomic attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Phillips was a mentor to Kate Wolf. He recorded songs and stories with Rosalie Sorrels on a CD called The Long Memory (1996), originally a college project "Worker's Doxology" for 1992 'cold-drill Magazine' Boise State University. His protégée, Ani DiFranco, recorded two CDs, The Past Didn't Go Anywhere (1996) and Fellow Workers (1999), with him. He was nominated for a Grammy Award for his work with DiFranco. His "Green Rolling Hills" was made into a country hit by Emmylou Harris, and "The Goodnight-Loving Trail" became a classic as well, being recorded by Ian Tyson, Tom Waits, and others.

Later years

Though known primarily for his work as a concert performer and labor organizer, Phillips also worked as an archivist, dishwasher, and warehouse-man.

Phillips was a member of various socio-political organizations and groups throughout his life. A strong supporter of labor struggles, he was a member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), the International Union of Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers (Mine Mill), and the Travelling Musician's Union AFM Local 1000. In solidarity with the poor, he was also an honorary member of Dignity Village, a homeless community. A pacifist, he was a member of Veterans for Peace and the Peace Center of Nevada County. and the Peace and Justice Center. "It's my town. Nevada City is a primary seed-bed for community organizing." Later that autumn, Phillips announced that due to health problems he could no longer tour. By January 2008, he decided against a heart transplant.

Phillips died May 23, 2008 in Nevada City, California, from complications of heart disease, at the age of 73. He was survived by his wife, sons, Duncan and Brendan, and a daughter, Morrigan. Following a private service, a public memorial was held on June 1, in Pioneer Park, in Nevada City. His service was officiated by Meghan Cefalu, a Unitarian Universalist pastor.

Discography

{| | width="350pt" valign="top" | Studio albums

1992 I've Got to Know

1996 The Long Memory

1996 The Past Didn't Go Anywhere

1999 Fellow Workers

1997 Heart Songs

1997 Loafer's Glory

1999 The Moscow Hold

2005 Starlight on the Rails

| width="350pt" valign="top" | Other albums

1974 Good Though!

1975 El Capitan

1983 We Have Fed You All a Thousand Years

1985 Don't Mourn– Organize

1992 Rebel Voices

1997 Legends of Folk

1997 The Telling Takes Me Home

2000 Making Speech Free

2001 The Rose Tattoo

|}

Notes and references

External links

September 2003 Interview in The Progressive

Biography from the 1997 Folk Alliance Lifetime Achievement Awards

Summer 2005 Interview in "Unlikely Stories"

Fall 2005 Interview in YES! Magazine

Turtle Vision photo gallery of Utah Phillips

(Radio broadcast)

The “Golden Voice of the Great Southwest”, Utah Phillips memorial page on Democracy Now!

Utah Phillips interview with David Kupfer, The Progressive, September 2003.

"Voting for the First Time", by Carolyn Crane. The Nation. October 12, 2004.

Category:American folk singers Category:American singer-songwriters Category:American storytellers Category:American buskers Category:American anarchists Category:Anarchist musicians Category:Industrial Workers of the World members Category:Christian anarchists Category:American Christian pacifists Category:Catholic Workers Category:American activists Category:American anti-war activists Category:American pacifists Category:American tax resisters Category:Utah politicians Category:Folk music of the American Southwest Category:Righteous Babe artists Category:People from Nevada City, California Category:People from Salt Lake City, Utah Category:People from Cleveland, Ohio Category:Musicians from Cleveland, Ohio Category:American socialists Category:1935 births Category:2008 deaths Category:United States Army soldiers

Name	Allison Moorer
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Allison Moorer
Born	June 21, 1972
Origin	Frankville, Alabama, USA
Instrument	vocals, guitar, piano
Genre	country, folk
Occupation	singer-songwriter
Years active	1998–present
Label	MCA Nashville RecordsUniversal SouthSugar Hill RecordsNew Line RecordsRyko Records
Associated acts	Shelby Lynne, Steve Earle
Url	www.allisonmoorer.com

Allison Moorer (born June 21, 1972) is an American alternative country singer and the younger sister of Shelby Lynne. She signed to MCA Nashville in 1998 and made her debut on the U.S. Billboard country charts with the release of her debut single "A Soft Place to Fall", which reached #73.

Since the release of her debut album Alabama Song, she released seven albums and 11 singles, five of which reached positions on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart.

Biography

Early years

Allison was raised in Frankville, Alabama, just north of Mobile. Raised on George Jones and Tammy Wynette, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash and Emmylou Harris, she sang harmonies as a toddler, eventually thinking she'd make a career of it. Following the murder-suicide of her parents in 1986, she moved into her aunt and uncle's home.

Musical career

Not long afterwards, sister Shelby Lynne moved to Nashville for a career in music, and after her high school graduation, Moorer followed. She sang harmonies with her sister for a while but returned to Alabama to earn a degree in public relations. She skipped the graduation ceremony to move back to Nashville.

There, she met Doyle "Butch" Primm, an Oklahoma-reared musician who soon became her husband and frequent songwriting partner. In June 1996, she took part in a series of tributes to her songwriter friend, the late Walter Hyatt, singing his "Tell Me Baby" at Nashville's Ryman Auditorium. Nashville agent Bobby Cudd was sufficiently impressed to hook her up with producer Tony Brown. After a few meetings, Brown asked her to cut some demos, from which two tracks—"Pardon Me" and "Call My Name"—ended up on her first MCA album, "Alabama Song".

Her song "A Soft Place to Fall" was tapped for "The Horse Whisperer" in 1998, and she also appeared in the movie. Because the ballad earned her an Academy Award nomination, she performed it on the 1999 Oscars ceremony. However, none of her singles from "Alabama Song" or its follow-up "The Hardest Part" caught on at radio, though both projects were highly praised by critics.

When Brown moved from MCA to sister label Universal South, Moorer followed. Her 2002 album "Miss Fortune" earned more raves but didn't meet sales expectations. She almost got another big break by recording the duet "Picture" with Kid Rock after Sheryl Crow declined. However, Crow changed her mind, and the Rock-Crow version was a huge radio hit. Yet, the song was credited on the charts to both Crow and Moorer; in addition, the CD single featuring Moorer sold 500,000 copies and is certified Gold by the RIAA.

Her ballad "Tumbling Down" (from "Miss Fortune") was featured on the soundtrack of the popular 2002 film "The Rookie".

Her album,"Show" was recorded in one night (two performances) at the 12th and Porter, Nashville and despite popular belief, it features the first recorded collaboration of both Moorer sisters.

After releasing "Show" and DVD on Universal South, Moorer moved to independent label Sugar Hill Records. With a slightly rougher edge than past efforts, The Duel was released in April 2004.

About a year after "The Duel", Moorer divorced Primm and married Steve Earle, after serving as his opening act on a European tour. Earle produced her 2006 album, Getting Somewhere. Moorer wrote all the songs, with the exception of one co-written with Earle. The couple live in New York City. She and Earle were nominated for a Grammy award in the category Best Country Collaboration with Vocals, for the song "Days Aren't Long Enough" from Earle's "Washington Square Serenade." Moorer gave birth to their first child together, John Henry Earle, on April 5, 2010.

Moorer released the Buddy Miller-produced Mockingbird in February 2008; an album mainly of covers of songs by female singer/songwriters including her sister, Shelby Lynne.

In 2009, Moorer performed in The People Speak, a documentary feature film that uses dramatic and musical performances of the letters, diaries, and speeches of everyday Americans, based on historian Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States”.

Discography

Studio albums

Compilation albums

Singles

^A "Alabama Song" reached number 73 on the Canadian RPM Country Tracks.

Guest singles

^A Song was credited on the charts to Kid Rock with Sheryl Crow or Allison Moorer.

Music videos

Collaborations

Performed with Steve Earle on the song "After The Fire Is Gone" from Coal Miner's Daughter: A Tribute To Loretta Lynn (2010).

References

External links

Allison Moorer official website

CMT.com profile

Allison Moorer at NPR Music

http://articles.latimes.com/2009/dec/12/entertainment/la-et-people-speak12-2009dec12

Category:People from Mobile, Alabama Category:1972 births Category:Living people Category:American female singers Category:American country singers Category:MCA Records artists Category:Show Dog-Universal Music artists