Adoption in America: Historical Perspectives

Contents

Contents Introduction 1 A Historical Overview of American Adoption E. Wayne Carp A Good Home 27 Indenture and Adoption in Nineteenth-Century Orphanages Susan L. Porter Building a Nation, Building a Family 51 Adoption in Nineteenth-Century American Children’s Literature Carol J. Singley What’s Love Got to Do with It? 82 “Adoption” in Victorian and Edwardian England George K. Behlmer A Historical Comparison of Catholic and Jewish Adoption Practices in Chicago, 1833–1933 101 Paula F. Pfeffer Rescue a Child and Save the Nation 124 The Social Construction of Adoption in the Delineator, 1907–1911 Julie Berebitsky A Nation’s Need for Adoption and Competing Realities 140 The Washington Children’s Home Society, 1895–1915 Patricia S. Hart Adoption Agencies and the Search for the Ideal Family, 1918–1965 160 Brian Paul Gill When in Doubt, Count 181 World War II as a Watershed in the History of Adoption E. Wayne Carp and Anna Leon-Guerrero Adoption Stories 218 Autobiographical Narrative and the Politics of Identity Barbara Melosh Contributors 247 Index 249 ...