Between 1850 and 1950 clothing had a great effect on children’s lives. Some children spent their childhoods working in textile mills or on farms harvesting cotton to help their families make enough money. Other children came from families that could afford the latest trends in children’s clothes which changes based on societies presumptions of childhood at that time. It is also important to remember that for some children the clothes they had on were the only possessions that they had. This is evident by listening to former riders of the “Orphan Trains” that took orphans and homeless kids from New York City and tried to find them homes in the Midwest. This project dives into how the the different ways that clothing effected children changed from 1850 and 1950.