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Title details for American Baby by Gabrielle Glaser - Available

American Baby

A Mother, a Child, and the Shadow History of Adoption

by Gabrielle Glaser
Kathe Mazur
Audiobook
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1 of 1 copy available
A New York Times Notable Book
The shocking truth about postwar adoption in America, told through the bittersweet story of one teenager, the son she was forced to relinquish, and their search to find each other.
“[T]his book about the past might foreshadow a coming shift in the future… ‘I don’t think any legislators in those states who are anti-abortion are actually thinking, “Oh, great, these single women are gonna raise more children.” No, their hope is that those children will be placed for adoption. But is that the reality? I doubt it.’”[says Glaser]” -Mother Jones
During the Baby Boom in 1960s America, women were encouraged to stay home and raise large families, but sex and childbirth were taboo subjects. Premarital sex was common, but birth control was hard to get and abortion was illegal. In 1961, sixteen-year-old Margaret Erle fell in love and became pregnant. Her enraged family sent her to a maternity home, where social workers threatened her with jail until she signed away her parental rights. Her son vanished, his whereabouts and new identity known only to an adoption agency that would never share the slightest detail about his fate.
The adoption business was founded on secrecy and lies. American Baby lays out how a lucrative and exploitative industry removed children from their birth mothers and placed them with hopeful families, fabricating stories about infants' origins and destinations, then closing the door firmly between the parties forever. Adoption agencies and other organizations that purported to help pregnant women struck unethical deals with doctors and researchers for pseudoscientific "assessments," and shamed millions of women into surrendering their children.
The identities of many who were adopted or who surrendered a child in the postwar decades are still locked in sealed files. Gabrielle Glaser dramatically illustrates in Margaret and David’s tale—one they share with millions of Americans—a story of loss, love, and the search for identity.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    January 26, 2021

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780593212691
      • File size: 306211 KB
      • Duration: 10:37:56

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from October 19, 2020
      Journalist Glaser (Her Best-Kept Secret) chronicles the forcible separation of a young woman from her infant son, and their much-delayed reunion, in this sweeping and novelistic account. In 1961, 16-year-old Margaret Erle is sent by her outraged parents to a maternity home after becoming pregnant. There, she is bullied by the administrators into giving up her son, Stephen. Renamed David by his adoptive parents, he grows up to become a popular cantor in Portland, Ore. Glaser meets David in 2007 and learns what little family history he knows: he’s adopted, and, in poor health, wants to find his birth family. In 2014, she receives a phone call from him after he'd successfully reunited with his mother. Inspired by David’s story, Glaser starts looking into the history of adoption and uncovers a larger story. Post-WWII, she finds, an “adoption-industrial complex” transformed adoption from a largely informal process into an impersonal and secretive one intended to spare both teenagers and their families embarrassment. In capturing the meeting between Margaret and David as his health rapidly declines due to cancer, Glaser delivers more than just the story of “a lifelong separation and a bittersweet reunion,” and the well-paced narrative is made stronger by Glaser’s ability to write with intensity about a harsh reality. This is a page-turning, illuminating work. (Jan.)Correction: An earlier version of this review incorrectly stated the author helped David find his birth mother.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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