Jean Paton and the Struggle to Reform American Adoption

Contents

Contents Introduction 1 1. The Search for Identity 8 2. The Birth of a Reformer 18 3. The Life History Study Center 35 4. On the Road 56 5. Religion and Reunion 75 6. Illegitimacy, Traumatic Neurosis, and the Problem of Affliction 87 7. Orphan Voyage 114 8. Orphan Voyage Moves South 128 9. The New Adoption Reform Movement 152 10. Organizing the Movement 178 11. Sealed Adoption Records 198 12. Ombudsman 212 13. The American Adoption Congress 228 14. Straight Ahead 259 15. The Great American Tragedy 278 Epilogue 305 Notes 313 Index 391 Illustrations following page 86 Abbreviations Unless otherwise stated, all manuscript sources are from the Jean Paton Papers in possession of the author. Similarly, unless otherwise stated, letters without a folder name can be found in the folder with the person’s last name first, followed by the last name. For example, a letter from JP to Katherine Gordon can be found in the folder: Gordon, Katherine, Jean Paton Papers. ABS Jean Paton, The Adopted Break Silence: The Experiences and Views of Forty Adults Who Were Once Adopted Children. Philadelphia: Life History Study Center, 1954. ALMA Adoptees’ Liberty Movement Association BN Blue Notebook, Jean Paton Papers BJ Bonnie Jacobs [Margaret McDonald Lawrence] Carp, Family Matters E. Wayne Carp, Family Matters: Secrecy and Disclosure in the History of Adoption (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998). CM Correspondence with Magazines CUB Concerned United Birthparents FF Florence Fisher FR FOCUS Release, Blue Notebook, Jean Paton Papers JP Jean Paton JPP, UF Jean Paton Papers, Department of Special Collections, George A. Smathers Libraries, University of Florida, Gainesville LHSCR Life History Study Center Release MAC Mary Anne Cohen OV Ruthena Hill Kittson [Jean Paton], Orphan Voyage. New York: Vantage Press, 1968. ON Orange Notebook, Jean Paton Papers The LOG The LOG of Orphan Voyage mimeograph, (1967–1981) PR A Proper Response: To the Situation in Adoption (1993–1998) USCB U.S. Children Bureau Papers, Record Group 102, National Archives II, College Park, MD VWBP Viola Wertheim Bernard Papers, Long Health Sciences Library, Columbia University, New York Preface This study began inadvertently in 1993 while I was writing Family Matters: Secrecy and Disclosure in the History of Adoption. Out of curiosity, I asked Jean Paton whether she had retained any correspondence from her days as an adoption activist.1 She replied that she had many boxes of correspondence that told the entire history of the adoption reform movement.2 Little did I know at the time that this was a vast understatement. Three years later, I contacted Jean again in connection with my next project, a history of the adoption reform movement, because I suspected that she had played a major role in that story. I asked her how much correspondence she had retained over her lifetime of movement activities and whether she would give me permission to use it.3 She evaded my question about the size of her correspondence but gave permission for me to conduct “responsible research” into her files.4 I replied that I now intended to write a full-scale“life and times” biography of her, which I hoped would make a contribution “to the history of adoption, social work, and the larger realm of U.S. social history.” I added that I would like to travel to Harrison, Arkansas, to interview her and once again asked her to give me some sense of the size of her files.5 In a subsequent letter, Paton mentioned ten boxes of correspondence, which she agreed to mail to me. She also agreed to be interviewed. In June 1998 I traveled to Harrison and interviewed Paton for one week. I discovered a diminutive, feisty woman with twinkling blue eyes, a great sense of humor, and a hearty laugh. In answer to my myriad questions, Jean reveled in bringing out reams of correspondence, official documents, old newsletters, and newspaper clippings—like a magician pulling rabbits out of a hat—to the squeals of delight and amazement of her audience of one.6 At once, I recognized three things: how invaluable these sources were, the real possibility of their forming the basis of an important work of history, and how utterly ignorant I had been of the true history of the adoption reform movement. xii Preface This study is based primarily on Jean Paton’s correspondence, which she...