The Sun Won't Come Out Tomorrow

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The real history of being an orphan in America is nothing like the myth, and nothing like the American dream. The orphan story has been mythologized: Step one: While a child is still too young to form distinct memories of them, their parents die in an untimely fashion. Step two: Orphan acquires caretakers who amplify the world’s cruelty. Step three: Orphan escapes and goes on an adventure, encountering the world’s vast possibilities. The Sun Won't Come Out Tomorrow upends this. Pairing powerful critiques of popular orphan narratives, from Annie to the Boxcar Children to Party of Five, journalist Kristen Martin explores the real history of orphanhood in the United States, from the 1800s to the present. Martin reveals the mission of religious indoctrination that was at the core of the first orphanages, the orphan trains that took parentless children out West (often without a choice), and the inherent