Watch West by Orphan Train

It seems incomprehensible that there was a time in America's not-so-distant past when nearly a quarter of a million children from East Coast orphanages were loaded on trains and sent west, where they were presented "for the picking." These children were taken from a sometimes-rough existence to unfamiliar rural settings during an era that lasted from 1854 to 1929.

West by Orphan Train is a 2014 documentary with a runtime of 58 minutes. It has received mostly positive reviews from critics and viewers, who have given it an IMDb score of 7.4.