Table of Contents

OAH Magazine of History
Volume 15, No 4
Summer 2001

Copyright ©
Organization of American Historians

Lesson Plan

Adoption and the Family in Early-Twentieth-Century America

E. Wayne Carp

This lesson asks students to consider adoption in a historical perspective by contrasting modern notions with attitudes revealed in an early-twentieth-century source on the topic. This document, the 1913 “Face-sheet” of the Henry Watson Children’s Aid Society and Maryland Children’s Aid Society, is meant to suggest a great contrast with modern adoption and lead to a discussion of how different the present is from the past.

Although adoption has been around since biblical times, the origins of adoption in America can be traced to its first legislative enactment, the 1851 Massachusetts Adoption Act, which is commonly considered the first modern adoption law (3). The Massachusetts statute differed from all earlier statutes in its emphasis upon the welfare of the child; it was also the first statute to establish the principle of judicial supervision of adoptions. The law required the judge to ascertain that the adoptive parents were “of sufficient ability to bring up the child, before issuing the decree, and furnish suitable nurture and education,” and that in general the magistrate was satisfied that the adoption was “fit and proper” (4).

But in practice, this was rarely done. Biological families were broken up, their children literally kidnapped off the streets; children were placed in farm homes without any knowledge of their biological families; oftentimes there was no supervision of the home after placement; and few records were ever kept of the placement. The greatest offender in this regard—and the most influential child-placing institution in the United States in the second half of the nineteenth century—was the Children’s Aid Society (NYCAS) founded in 1853 in New York City by the Reverend Charles Loring Brace. Brace, a graduate of Yale Divinity School, believed that orphanages dehumanized children and that placing New York’s Catholic “street Arabs” in Protestant farm families in the West was good for them. By 1890 the NYCAS had placed some eighty-four thousand children through its “orphan trains.”

A decade earlier, Catholic leaders, state officials, and a new generation of child welfare reformers advocated modifying or abolishing many of the NYCAS child-placing practices; particularly the unnecessary break-up of families, casual solicitation of parental consent, poor investigatory procedures, inadequate supervision of the children placed, and deficient record-keeping (5). By the beginning of the twentieth century, child-placing institutions, including the various branches of the out-of-state Children’s Aid Societies (CAS), instituted standards of child placing that reformed their reckless practices. They made it a cardinal principle to thoroughly investigate each case in order to avoid severing the bonds of biological family members. CAS officials would accept children having parents or guardians only if a written surrender or commitment was given by the courts. To ensure a good home for the child, CAS employed local advisory boards and trained agents to screen applicants requesting children. CAS officials began keeping exact records of all children placed out. They also made “visits of inspection” before and after the child’s placement in a new home. CAS thus was in the forefront of establishing standards for child adoption. During the Progressive Era, professional social workers would lobby state legislatures to enact these standards into law (6).

Begin a classroom discussion by asking students what comes to mind when you say the word “adoption.” The answers will be complex, contradictory, and diverse. They will vary according to the students’ age, gender, race, and adoptive triad membership (i.e., whether the person is adopted, a birth mother, or an adoptive parent). Still, here are a few of the responses you can expect to hear from your students.

• Since the mid-nineteenth-century, the way Americans have created substitute families has been through formal adoption&emdash;the legal termination of the birth parents’ (traditionally defined as a heterosexual couple) parental rights and the taking into the home of a physical child. In keeping with this definition, many older students, particularly women, will see adoption as an altruistic, loving gesture made by an unwed mother to an infertile, childless couple. They will also view adoption as an alternative to abortion. But today, traditional families are on the wane. Thirty percent of adoptive parents are single mothers (7), and gay and lesbian couples are increasingly winning the legal right to adopt (8). Some 97 percent of white unwed mothers and 99 percent of African American unwed mothers keep their babies. Twenty years ago, 20 percent of white unwed mothers relinquished their infants for adoption, while only 2 percent of black unwed mothers did so (9).
• In contrast to older students, many younger females will voice the opinion that unwed mothers who contemplate relinquishing their children are “cold” and cruel. It is also possible that some older African American students will oppose transracial adoption—such as when a white couple adopts a black child—on the grounds of cultural genocide.
• Students may raise the topic of “open adoption.” Unlike traditional or “closed” adoptions—where the identities of birth and adoptive parents are kept from each other—in open adoptions, both sets of parents’ identities are revealed to each other. In fact, in an open adoption, birth and adoptive parents meet each other and continue to stay in touch on a continuum that ranges from simply exchanging letters and photos over a period of years to staying in physical contact for the entire life of the adopted child.
• Older members of the adoption triad might also mention the movement to open the sealed records of adoptees. These records, closed except upon court order since World War II, have been the focus of a social movement to open them since the early 1970s. To date, only five states allow adult adoptees access to their original birth certificates.
• Students may also bring up the issue of “intercountry” or international adoption. Ever since the early 1970s, when unwed mothers stopped relinquishing their babies for adoption, the number of adoptions from overseas has increased rapidly. Today, international adoptions number some fifteen thousand, making up almost 13 percent of adoptions, but they have been denounced by critics as exploitive of poorer countries, destructive of children’s cultural and ethnic heritage, and riven by baby-selling scandals (10). Critics’ objections have recently been met, however, with the signing by the United States of the Hague Convention, which regulates intercountry adoption by placing adoption agencies under the scrutiny of the international community (11).
• Finally, some students may raise the issue of the technology of assisted reproduction. As an outgrowth of in vitro fertilization technology, researchers have developed “embryo adoption,” where an infertile couple can adopt a donated frozen embryo, bringing into question the very meaning of the institution of adoption. Such an embryo, created by combining a genetically unrelated woman’s egg and a man’s sperm, is implanted into the uterus of the adopting mother so that she may experience childbirth. Embryo adoption obviates the need for legal adoption because many state laws maintain that a woman who gives birth to a child is the biological parent (12).

After the class has discussed modern adoption sufficiently, distribute photocopies of the CAS “Face-sheet,” included below. Ask students to read the document, paying special attention to the “Conditions of Placement,” which represent CAS officials’ efforts to codify the obligations and rights of adoptive parents. Once they have read the material, ask students to compare and contrast the “Conditions of Placement” with their earlier discussion of modern adoption.

• Students should immediately notice that Conditions 1 and 2 treat the child as a consumer item, allowing the adoptive parents to return “it” in sixty days if “it” doesn’t adjust to the home. Discussion should include some speculation about what such rules tell us about how Americans feel about children and what they might tell us about the law of supply and demand. Because there were many orphans and few adoptive parents, child-placing organizations like the CAS had to be as flexible as possible. Ask students if other conditions suggest that the CAS was using incentives to “sell” adoption (such as Condition 6).
• What does the CAS appear to care most about, the physical or emotional care of the child? Condition 4 suggests that economic well-being, schooling, and religious training are the primary concerns of the CAS. Almost as an afterthought does Condition 4 add “and will treat it as if it was our own.” How many days are the children expected to go to school? Is this many? Few? Why? Your students should answer “few.” Because during the first quarter of the twentieth century, America was still mostly an agricultural society, most of the CAS children were placed on farms and most worked rather than attending school. Students should also examine the three other pages of the Face-sheet for answers to this question. The emphasis on housing, religion, and occupation reinforces the idea that emotional bonds were not primary considerations for CAS officials, while the prospective adoptive parents’ response to questions 21 and 22 raise questions about what kind of relationship they imagine for the child they wish to take into the family—servant or son?
• Condition 7 should also draw some comment from students. Although the CAS did not allow communication with friends or relatives without its consent, there was the suggestion that it would have been likely to grant such consent. Students should note that in a traditional or “closed” adoption this is highly unusual. The adoption records are sealed and may be opened only with a court order. The adopted child and his or her birth parents are never reunited while the child is a minor.
• Students should ponder what Conditions 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, and 13 reveal about CAS attitudes toward adoptive parents and their behavior toward children placed in their care. CAS officials did not trust adoptive parents to do what was in the best interests of the child and at times clearly viewed them as downright irresponsible. If one can read behavior into the “Do not’s” in the various conditions cited, it is apparent that adoptive parents refused to allow CAS agents into the home when the child was sick (Condition 8); returned the child on the fifty-ninth or sixtieth day (Condition 9); given the child away to someone else without notifying the CAS (Condition 10); moved within the state without notifying the CAS (Condition 11); moved out of state without notifying the CAS (Condition 12); and returned the child ill-clad, injured, and infected with a contagious disease (Condition 13).
• Finally, students should be asked about the power relations that existed between the CAS and the adoptive parents. Even though adoptive parents might have been in great demand and there appear to have been strong incentives being made to them to accept a child into their home, it is clear that the CAS wielded absolute power. Condition 8 gave the CAS the right to enter the adoptive parents’ home to care for a sick child, while Condition 14 gave the CAS the right, if the welfare of the child demanded it, to remove the child from the adoptive parents’ home.

By comparing and contrasting modern views on adoption with those of a century ago, student will come to understand the changing nature of cultural attitudes and societal institutions. They will also gain perspective on the inherent connections of history, as they realize that cultural ideas about adoption are intimately related to economics, social reform, religion, and family demographics.

2. Kathy S. Stolley, “Statistics on Adoption in the United States,” The Future of Children 3 (Spring 1993): 34-36.

3. For a history of American adoption, see E. Wayne Carp, Family Matters: Secrecy and Disclosure in the History of Adoption (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998), chap. 1.

4. Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Court of Massachusetts, 1851, ch. 324 (Boston, 1851), 816.

5. Carp, Family Matters, 9-14.

6. Carp, Family Matters, 14.

7. Stolley, “Statistics on Adoption,” 37.

8. Eighteen states explicitly permit gay and lesbian adoption, while only four states&emdash;New Hampshire, Mississippi, Florida, and Wisconsin&emdash;explicitly deny gays and lesbians the ability to adopt. Joseph Price, “A State-by-State Guide to Adoption,” Families Like Ours: <http://www.familieslikeours.org/resources/states/bythenumbers.htm>, (1 June 2001).

9. C. A. Bachrach, K. S. Stolley, and K. A. London, “Relinquishment of Premarital Births: Evidence from National Survey Data,” Family Planning Perspectives 24 (1992): 24.

10. Elizabeth Bartholet, “International Adoption: Overview,” Adoption: Law and Practice 2: 33-35; Kenneth J. Hermann Jr. and Barbara Kasper, “International Adoption: The Exploitation of Women and Children,” Affilia 7 (Spring 1992): 45-58.

11. The official name of the treaty is the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Cooperation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption (Treaty Doc. 10551). Miles A. Pomper, “Adoption Treaty Approved by Senate Panel,” Congressional Quarterly Weekly 4 (4 April 2000): 915-16.

12. Susan Lewis Cooper and Ellen Sarasohn Glazer, Choosing Assisted Reproduction: Social, Emotional, and Ethical Considerations (Indianapolis: Perspectives Press, 1998), chap. 9.

E. Wayne Carp is a professor of history at Pacific Lutheran University. He is the author of Family Matters: Secrecy and Disclosure in the History of Adoption (1998); and the editor of Historical Perspectives on American Adoption (forthcoming).