become an issue as more mothers become unable to afford or take care of their children adequately. History The support of family preservation can be traced back to the negative reaction to the 'orphan train movement'. After the 1851 passage of the Massachusetts Adoption Act, children were shifted from institutions to adoptive families. Reverend Charles Loring Brace, the founder of the Children's Aid Society, was responsible for this movement. He saw children as a threat to social order, who needed to be removed from their poverty stricken parents as poverty restricts moral family values. In March 1884, he loaded a train with 138 children who were affected by poverty and sent them west. These children, half who were not orphans, stood on the platform at each stop waiting to be claimed or sent to the next stop. His methods were replicated and the total number of children affected was estimated from 150,000 to 250,000. The outrage against this practice caused many people to take an alternative method to the extreme, and thus set the stage for the progressive era.<ref name="Kahan, M. 2006">Kahan, M. (2006). "Put Up on Platforms: A History of Twentieth Century Adoption Policy in the United States. Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare 23(3).</ref> Two early reformers setting the stage for family preservation were Lillian Wald and Florence Kelley. Florence Kelley gave a series of lectures at various universities proposing a United States Commission for Children. This Commission would research and share information in regards to the mental and moral conditions, as well as the prospects of children of the Nation. She included seven major subjects requiring prompt attention including infant mortality, birth registration, orphanage, child labor, desertion, illegitimacy and degeneracy. In 1903, Lillian Wald suggested the creation of a Federal Children's Bureau to Florence Kelley. She argued that there was no reason the government could not have a department to look after children if it could have one to look after farm crops. President William Howard Taft signed into law the bill that creates the Children's Bureau in 1912. Julia Lathrop was appointed as the first chief and headed a 16 person organization with an initial budget of $25,640. Throughout their nine-year struggle Wald and Florence received support from many prominent people, including President Theodore Roosevelt. They would be credited for spreading these ideas and giving them a far-reaching impact. This impact helped issues of child welfare