The Girls Who Went Away

Last updated

The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade is a 2006 book by Ann Fessler which describes and recounts the experiences of women in the United States who relinquished babies for adoption between 1950 and the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973.

Contents

About

Fessler conceived of the book through her own experience looking for her biological mother. [1] As a documentary filmmaker, installation artist, and author, Fessler first produced several autobiographical installations on adoption; two featured her previous short films Cliff & Hazel [2] [3] about her adoptive family, and Along the Pale Blue River (2001/2013) about her search for a yearbook picture of her mother. At each installation site, Fessler invited audience members to write and post their own adoption stories and based on the anonymous stories left behind by first mothers, she initiated an oral history project to collect the women's stories.

In 2002, Fessler began interviewing women who lost children to adoption between 1945-1973, when an unprecedented 1.5 million babies were surrendered under tremendous social pressure. [4] She collected over 100 oral histories of women who had relinquished their children and the shame and guilt they felt which had effectively silenced them. The book uses these oral histories to analyze the social contexts of adoption, including the pressures placed on the birth mother by family, adoption agencies, and society at large to give up the child for adoption, and the long-term psychological consequences for this event on her in the "baby scoop era." [1]

Oral stories in the book were highly critical of homes for unwed mothers, particularly the Florence Crittenton Homes, and their coercive practices and the requirement of the women in it to give up their children for adoption. [5] [6] Social workers in the homes classified the primarily white unwed mothers as neurotic or morally bankrupt and subjected them to extreme secrecy and psychological intimidation. However, unwed African-American women were expected to keep their children due to the stereotypes of the time that deemed black women were sexually promiscuous. [5]

In 2006, the book was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award [7] and received the Women's Way Ballard Book Prize in 2008, a prize given annually to a female author who makes a significant contribution to the dialogue about women's rights. [8]

Editions

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adoption</span> Parenting a child in place of the original parents

Adoption is a process whereby a person assumes the parenting of another, usually a child, from that person's biological or legal parent or parents. Legal adoptions permanently transfer all rights and responsibilities, along with filiation, from the biological parents to the adoptive parents.

Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that the Constitution of the United States conferred the right to choose to have an abortion. The decision struck down many federal and state abortion laws, and it caused an ongoing abortion debate in the United States about whether, or to what extent, abortion should be legal, who should decide the legality of abortion, and what the role of moral and religious views in the political sphere should be. The decision also shaped debate concerning which methods the Supreme Court should use in constitutional adjudication.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Norma McCorvey</span> Plaintiff in Roe v. Wade (1947–2017)

Norma Leah Nelson McCorvey, also known by the pseudonym "Jane Roe", was the plaintiff in the landmark American legal case Roe v. Wade in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1973 that individual state laws banning abortion were unconstitutional.

The international adoption of South Korean children was at first started as a result of a large number of orphaned mixed children from the Korean War after 1953, but later included orphaned Korean children. Religious organizations in the United States, Australia, and many Western European nations slowly developed into the apparatus that sustained international adoption as a socially integrated system. This system, however, is essentially gone as of 2020. The number of children given for adoption is lower than in comparable OECD countries of a similar size, the majority of adoptees are adopted by South Korean families, and the number of international adoptees is at a historical low.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sarah Weddington</span> American lawyer and politician (1945–2021)

Sarah Catherine Ragle Weddington was an American attorney, law professor, advocate for women's rights and reproductive health, and member of the Texas House of Representatives. She was best known for representing "Jane Roe" in the landmark Roe v. Wade case before the United States Supreme Court. She also was the first woman General Counsel for the US Department of Agriculture.

Doe v. Bolton, 410 U.S. 179 (1973), was a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States overturning the abortion law of Georgia. The Supreme Court's decision was released on January 22, 1973, the same day as the decision in the better-known case of Roe v. Wade.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Georgia Tann</span> American child trafficker (1891–1950)

Beulah George "Georgia" Tann, was an American child trafficker who operated the Tennessee Children's Home Society, an adoption agency in Memphis, Tennessee. Tann used the unlicensed home as a front for her black market baby adoption scheme from the 1920s. Young children were kidnapped and then sold to wealthy families, abused, or—in some instances—murdered. A state investigation into numerous instances of adoption fraud led to the closure of the institution in 1950. Tann died of cancer before the investigation made its findings public. Tann's custom of placing children with influential members of society normalized adoption in the U.S., and many of her adoption policies have become standard practice.

Tennessee Children's Home Society was a chain of orphanages that operated in the state of Tennessee during the first half of the twentieth century. It is most often associated with Georgia Tann, its Memphis branch operator and child trafficker who was involved in the kidnapping of children and their illegal adoptions.

The "Baby Jessica" case was a highly publicized custody battle in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the early 1990s between Jan and Roberta DeBoer, the couple who attempted to adopt the child, and her biological parents, Daniel Schmidt and Cara Clausen. In August 1993, the supreme courts of Iowa and Michigan ordered her returned to Schmidt, who named her Anna Jacqueline Schmidt. The case was widely publicized as the "Baby Jessica" case after the name given her by the DeBoers. The case name is In re Clausen 442 Mich. 648 (1993).

The Baby Scoop Era was a period in anglosphere history starting after the end of World War II and ending in the early 1970s, characterized by an increasing rate of pre-marital pregnancies over the preceding period, along with a higher rate of newborn adoption.

Effects of adoption on the birth mother include stigma and other psychological effects a woman experiences when she places her child for adoption.

<i>Butterbox Babies</i> 1995 Canadian film

Butterbox Babies is a film adapted from the book Butterbox Babies by Bette L. Cahill, which is based on the true story of the Ideal Maternity Home, a home for unwed pregnant mothers, during the Great Depression and Second World War. The home made millions from the illegal adoption of illegitimate babies during the 1930s and 1940s.babies dead 1930 mom

Caban v. Mohammed, 441 U.S. 380 (1979), was a United States Supreme Court family law case which argued that a New York law, which allowed unwed mothers, but not unwed fathers, a veto over the adoption of that couple's children, was discriminatory.

Concerned United Birthparents, Inc. (CUB), a non-profit organization established in 1976, is one of two primary nationwide organizations offering support to the biological parents of adopted people in the United States. The organization is credited with the creation of the term "birthparent."

A maternity home, or maternity housing program, is a form of supportive housing provided to pregnant women. Maternity housing programs support a woman in need of a stable home environment to reach her goals in a variety of areas including education, employment, financial stability, prenatal care, and more. There are over 400 maternity homes in the United States ranging in size and criteria for admittance. Staffing model is a primary way that maternity homes differ. The three major staffing models are houseparents, live-in staff, and shift staff. Additionally, there are a limited number of maternity housing program who operate as a "shepherding" or "host" home. In the "host home" model, women are connected to screened households that offer to provide housing.

<i>A Girl Like Her</i> (2012 film) 2012 American film

A Girl Like Her is a 2012 American documentary film by Ann Fessler about women who lost children to adoption in the United States between the end of World War II and the early 1970s due to the social pressures of the time, in a period now known as the Baby Scoop Era. Fessler combines the voices of the women with footage from educational films and newsreels about dating, sex, “illegitimate” pregnancy and adoption. The women's stories unfold over footage of life in post-World War II America. Educational films offer guidance about dating and sex, and scripted newsreels shed light on adoption in an era when secrecy prevailed and adoptable babies were thought to be “unwanted” by their mothers. As the footage illuminates the past, the women's stories form a collective narrative as they recount their experiences of dating, pregnancy, family reaction, banishment, and the long-term impact of surrender and silence on their lives.

Ann Fessler is an author, filmmaker, video-installation artist, and a professor emerita at the Rhode Island School of Design. Her work reconciles the division between lived history and recorded history from a feminist perspective. She is especially known for her work dealing with adoption before legalized abortion and the experiences of women who surrendered children in the 1950s and 60s; particularly women who were seen as unfit mothers due to being a single parent.

Birth mothers in South Korea refers to the group of biological mothers whose children were given up for adoption in South Korea's international adoption practice. The decades-long phenomenon of international adoption in South Korea began after the Korean War. In the years since the war, South Korea has become the largest and longest provider of children placed for international adoption, with 165,944 recorded Korean adoptees living in 14 countries, primarily in North America and Western Europe, as of 2014.

The Milford Industrial Home, formerly called Nebraska Maternity Home, was an institution in Milford, Nebraska, which housed unmarried pregnant women. For a while it was the only such institution in the country. It was founded by an act of the Nebraska Legislature in 1887, and the first woman was admitted in 1889. The women were under strict rules, and were encouraged to give up their babies for adoption. They stayed there, usually under court order, for a period of a year. The home closed in 1954; it is estimated that over 4,000 babies were born there.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shelley Lynn Thornton</span> Baby in Roe v. Wade

Shelley Lynn Thornton is the biological daughter of Norma McCorvey. Also referred to by the pseudonym "Roe Baby", Thornton is the child at the center of the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Roe v. Wade. Her identity was not publicly known until 2021.

References

  1. 1 2 Harrison, Kathryn (2006-06-11). "In Trouble". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2021-12-05.
  2. "Cliff & Hazel | Sie FilmCenter 2013 | Ann Fessler | USA". www.denverfilm.org. Retrieved 2015-06-08.
  3. "Ann Fessler's adoption project, in print and on display in Durham" . Retrieved 2015-06-12.[ permanent dead link ]
  4. "Adoption History: Penelope L. Maza, "Adoption Trends: 1944-1975"". pages.uoregon.edu. Retrieved 2015-06-08.
  5. 1 2 "The maternity homes where 'mind control' was used on teen moms to give up their babies". Washington Post. ISSN   0190-8286 . Retrieved 2021-12-05.
  6. Ellerby, Janet Mason (2007). Following the tambourine man: a birthmother's memoir. Syracuse University Press. pp. 91–92. ISBN   9780815608899.
  7. "2006". National Book Critics Circle. Retrieved 2021-12-05.
  8. "WOMEN'S WAY Book Prize | WOMEN'S WAY". www.womensway.org. Retrieved 2015-06-08.