Download or read book Gone to an Aunt s written by Anne Petrie and published by McClelland & Stewart. This book was released on 2013-04-09 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thirty or forty years ago, everybody knew what that phrase meant: a girl or a young, unmarried woman had gotten herself pregnant. She was “in trouble.” She had brought indescribable shame on herself and her family. In those days it was unthinkable that she would have her child and keep it. Instead she had to hide. Most likely she would be sent away to a home for unwed mothers, where she would stay in secrecy until her baby was born and given up for adoption. “Gone to an aunt’s” was the usual cover story, a fiction that everyone understood but no on talked about –until now. In Gone to an Aunt’s, journalist and long-time television host Anne Petrie takes us back into these homes for unwed mothers. Most cities in Canada had at least one home, several as many as five or six, most of them run by religious organizations. Here, in institutional settings, the girls were kept out of sight until their time was up and they could return to the world as if nothing had happened. Seven women –including the author – recount their experiences in Gone to an Aunt’s, talking openly, some for the first time, about how they got pregnant; the reaction of their parents, friends, boyfriends, and lovers; why they wound up in a home; and how they managed to cope with its rules and regulations –no last names, no talking about the past –and the promise of salvation that could come only through work and prayer. Gone to an Aunt’s is a profoundly moving and compassionate –even alarming – account. It comes as a reminder that we not get too wistful for the supposedly innocent times before the sexual revolution. That innocence, Petrie shows vividly, was a charade made believable only because the thousands of girls who had broken the rules were hidden away.
Download or read book The Girls Who Went Away written by Ann Fessler and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2007-06-26 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The astonishing untold history of the million and a half women who surrendered children for adoption due to enormous family and social pressure in the decades before Roe v. Wade. “It would take a heart of stone not to be moved by the oral histories of these women and by the courage and candor with which they express themselves.” —The Washington Post “A remarkably well-researched and accomplished book.” —The New York Times Book Review “A wrenching, riveting book.” —Chicago Tribune In this deeply moving and myth-shattering work, Ann Fessler brings out into the open for the first time the hidden social history of adoption before Roe v. Wade - and its lasting legacy. An adoptee who was herself surrendered during those years and recently made contact with her mother, Ann Fessler brilliantly brings to life the voices of more than a hundred women, as well as the spirit of those times, allowing the women to tell their stories in gripping and intimate detail.
Download or read book Choiceless written by Ruby Lee Cornelius and published by LifeRich Publishing. This book was released on 2018-06-19 with total page 145 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This memoir details the events and emotional struggles surrounding the authors teen pregnancy in the 1970s Midwest. Shunned first because of her interracial relationship and second for her out-of-wedlock pregnancy, Ruby Cornelius ends up against her will in the homea place created to temporarily house and hide the shame of these girls condition. Spanning more than four decades, the author poignantly shares a journey of motherhood lost and gained.
Download or read book The Baby Laundry for Unmarried Mothers written by Angela Patrick and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-03-15 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The tragic but ultimately uplifting story of a young woman who was sent to a 'baby laundry' for unmarried mothers in 1960s London In 1963, London was on the brink of becoming one of the world's most vibrant cities. Angela Patrick was 19 years old, enjoying her first job working in the City, when her life turned upside down. A brief fling with a charismatic charmer left her pregnant, unmarried and facing a stark future. Being under 21, she was still under the governance of her parents, strict Catholics who insisted she have the baby in secret and then put it up for adoption. Shunned by her family and forced to leave her job, Angela was sent to an imposing-looking convent for unmarried mothers in north-east London. Run like a Victorian workhouse, conditions in the convent were decidedly Spartan. Vilified and degraded by the nuns for her 'wickedness', her only comfort came from the other pregnant girls, all knowing they too would have to give up their babies. After a terrifying labour with no pain relief, Angela gave birth to a beautiful son, Paul, with whom she fell instantly in love. At eight weeks he was taken from her and forcibly put up for adoption, leaving Angela bereft and heartbroken. Not a day went by without Angela thinking about him. Then, thirty years later, she received a letter. It was from Paul, and a reunion was arranged. This vital slice of social history is a shocking reminder of how cultural mores have changed around the issue of single motherhood since the early 1960s. It is also an honest, heartfelt memoir that explores the closest of human bonds.
Download or read book Mansion on a Hill The Story of the Willows Maternity Sanitarium and the Adoption Hub of America written by Kellee Parr and published by Independently Published. This book was released on 2018-10-09 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "What would it have been like to be a sixteen-year-old girl in 1925, unmarried and pregnant? In those days, society was cruel to a young woman in this situation. Family members often turned their backs out of embarrassment. The young woman was disgraced and ostracized. The child born out of wedlock was tarnished for life unless secretly adopted. Options were few. Abortion was illegal, expensive, and extremely risky, ignoring any moral issues. Scared and ashamed, many girls were sent to "visit" family in another city or states until the problem went away. A well-kept secret from society, over 100,000 of these young women were sent to Kansas City, Missouri. They traveled, mostly by train, to facilities like The Willows Maternity Sanitarium to hide their dilemma. The Willows was one of the largest homes in America for unwed, pregnant girls to live in seclusion. Months later they would return home empty handed to carry on as though nothing ever happened. They physical pain and trauma were over but the emotional wounds were never healed or forgotten. This is the incredible, true story of The Willows Maternity Sanitarium, the Haworth family who were savvy business owners yet deeply compassionate to these unfortunate girls, and the voices of several whose lives were touched by The Willows."--back cover.
Download or read book Wake Up Little Susie written by Rickie Solinger and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-10-15 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rickie Solinger's passionate and powerful history serves to remind us of the importance of the feminist efforts that led to Roe v. Wade and the many other measures that have liberated women from the constraints of the past. -From the new foreword by Elaine Tyler May Twenty-five years after the Supreme Court's landmark decision, abortion rights are as fiercely contested as ever and current debates over welfare, workfare, and public assistance to women with children demonstrate the way in which race and class continue to effect women's reproductive freedom. A pioneering work, Wake Up Little Susie reveals how current attitudes toward these issues developed by examining their roots in the postwar era and discerning how differently they affected black and white women. A powerful and shocking book, Susie is a must-read for anyone seeking to understand the complex and disturbing politics surrounding issues of race, class and reproductive rights. This new edition includes a foreword by the esteemed social historian, Elaine Tyler May, and an afterword by the author that places the issues examined in Susie in the context of the current controversies.
Download or read book Fallen Women Problem Girls written by Regina G. Kunzel and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 1993-01-01 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the first half of the twentieth century, out-of-wedlock pregnancy came to be seen as one of the most urgent and compelling problems of the day. The effort to define its meaning fueled a struggle among three groups of women: evangelical reformers who regarded unmarried mothers as fallen sisters to be saved, a new generation of social workers who viewed them as problem girls to be treated, and unmarried mothers themselves. Drawing on previously unexamined case records from maternity homes, Regina Kunzel explores how women negotiated the crisis of single pregnancy and analyzes the different ways they understood and represented unmarried motherhood. Fallen Women, Problem Girls is a social and cultural history of out-of-wedlock pregnancy in the United States from 1890 to 1945. Kunzel analyzes how evangelical women drew on a long tradition of female benevolence to create maternity homes that would redeem and reclaim unmarried mothers. She shows how, by the 1910s, social workers struggling to achieve professional legitimacy tried to dissociate their own work from that earlier tradition, replacing the reform rhetoric of sisterhood with the scientific language of professionalism. By analyzing the important and unexplored transition from the conventions of nineteenth-century reform to the professional imperatives of twentieth-century social welfare, Kunzel offers a new interpretation of gender and professionalization. Kunzel places shifting constructions of out-of-wedlock pregnancy within a broad history of gender, sexuality, class, and race, and argues that the contests among evangelical women, social workers, and unmarried mothers distilled larger generational and cross-class conflicts among women in the first half of the twentieth century.
Download or read book White Unwed Mother written by Valerie J. Andrews and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This volume uncovers and substantiates evidence of the mandate in Canada, interrogates social work policies and practices, revisits the semi-incarceral "homes for unwed mothers," and quantifies the mandate through an extensive review of provincial reports; ultimately finding that approximately 300,000 unmarried mothers in Canada were impacted by illegal and unethical adoption practices, human rights abuses, and violence against the maternal body."--
Download or read book Looking for Jane written by Heather Marshall and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2023-02-07 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This “clever and satisfying” (Associated Press) #1 international bestseller for fans of Kristin Hannah and Jennifer Chiaverini follows three women who are bound together by a long-lost letter, a mother’s love, and a secret network of women fighting for the right to choose—inspired by true stories. 2017: When Angela Creighton discovers a mysterious letter containing a life-shattering confession, she is determined to find the intended recipient. Her search takes her back to the 1970s when a group of daring women operated an illegal underground abortion network in Toronto known only by its whispered code name: Jane. 1971: As a teenager, Dr. Evelyn Taylor was sent to a home for “fallen” women where she was forced to give up her baby for adoption—a trauma she has never recovered from. Despite the constant threat of arrest, she joins the Jane Network as an abortion provider, determined to give other women the choice she never had. 1980: After discovering a shocking secret about her family, twenty-year-old Nancy Mitchell begins to question everything she has ever known. When she unexpectedly becomes pregnant, she feels like she has no one to turn to for help. Grappling with her decision, she locates “Jane” and finds a place of her own alongside Dr. Taylor within the network’s ranks, but she can never escape the lies that haunt her. Looking for Jane is “a searing, important, beautifully written novel about the choices we all make and where they lead us—as well as a wise and timely reminder of the difficult road women had to walk not so long ago” (Kristin Harmel, New York Times bestselling author).
Download or read book The Baby Scoop Era written by Karen Wilson-Buterbaugh and published by . This book was released on 2017-06-30 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An expose of unethical and coercive adoption industry practices during a short period in American history known as the Baby Scoop Era (Post WWII - 1972). By sharing the actual printed words of social caseworkers, maternity home personnel, lawyers, judges, medical and mental health practitioners, the methods used to ensure that "unwed" mothers would surrender their babies to mostly infertile strangers will be revealed. These crimes against nature resulted in more than 1.5 million vulnerable new mothers being permanently separated from newborns that they might have parented had they been informed of their civil, legal, human and Constitutional rights.
Download or read book American Baby written by Gabrielle Glaser and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-01-26 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Mother and Baby Homes written by Jill Nicholson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-11-07 with total page 123 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the 1960s there had been much discussion about the plight of the unmarried mother and her child; but very little of it had been based on fact. At the time Mother and Baby Homes catered for between 11,000 and 12,000 unmarried mothers each year, out of a total of 70,000; but there was hardly one generalisation that would be applicable to all the Homes. Some were run by voluntary organisations, some by local authorities and some by religious groups. While some still retained the punitive attitude, others set themselves with much kindness to help the women – some of them mere schoolgirls, to face the difficulties of their position and to plan constructively for their own future and that of their babies. Originally published in 1968, this book gives the facts but, even more, it gives the feelings and ideas of those most concerned – the mothers-to-be and those who care for them. This is a careful and sensitive study. It was unique in putting on record for the first time the views of unmarried mothers themselves about the care they received. Everybody who is interested in the history of the health and welfare of the unmarried mother in residential care should read this book.
Download or read book The Last Hoffman written by Gwen Tuinman and published by . This book was released on 2020-03-30 with total page 462 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a floundering 1980s papermill town, awkward widower Floyd Hoffman holds a secret that draws contempt from his teenage son. As tensions rise, Floyd retreats into the past, reliving his tumultuous marriage to Bonnie, a manically-depressed first love whose passion drew him out of his reclusiveness. When his son dies suddenly from the same environmental cancer that claimed Bonnie, Floyd's life falls apart. He loses himself in the pursuit of justice against the reckless papermill responsible for his family's demise. In the midst of his grief, destitute teenager Tammy King appears on his doorstep along with her baby, the result of a clandestine affair with Floyd's son. While Floyd dreams of family redemption through his grandson, Tammy forges separate plans for an independent future. The Last Hoffman is a story about the reverberation of family secrets. It will renew your faith in second chances.
Download or read book Maternity Homes for Unmarried Mothers written by Maud Morlock and published by . This book was released on 1946 with total page 108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Unmarried Motherhood in the Metropolis 1700 1850 written by Samantha Williams and published by Palgrave Macmillan. This book was released on 2018-05-04 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book Samantha Williams examines illegitimacy, unmarried parenthood and the old and new poor laws in a period of rising illegitimacy and poor relief expenditure. In doing so, she explores the experience of being an unmarried mother from courtship and conception, through the discovery of pregnancy, and the birth of the child in lodgings or one of the new parish workhouses. Although fathers were generally held to be financially responsible for their illegitimate children, the recovery of these costs was particularly low in London, leaving the parish ratepayers to meet the cost. Unmarried parenthood was associated with shame and men and women could also be subject to punishment, although this was generally infrequent in the capital. Illegitimacy and the poor law were interdependent and this book charts the experience of unmarried motherhood and the making of metropolitan bastardy.
Download or read book I Called Her Mary written by Thomas Gorman and published by . This book was released on 2021-09 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Peg Holland became pregnant as a teenager in a conservative village in 1950s Ireland. She knew her life would never be the same again. She was sent away in shame only to find courage and wisdom deep within her soul that led her to the greatest life, husband, and family.Being poor and not having many options, Peg's parents sent her to Sean Ross Abbey to deliver the baby. After her baby, Mary, is born, Peg and Mary are heckled and ridiculed by townspeople for ninth months until Peg decides she must give Mary up for adoption so she can have a better life. This decision haunts her the rest of her life. Having nothing left to keep her in Ireland, Peg leaves home to work as an indentured servant for a family in America. Mick O'Hagan is swept away by Peg and wants to marry her. She refuses due to the secret of her baby that no one knows about. After seeking advice, Peg's mother tells her to not start her new life off with a lie and to tell Mick everything if she truly loves him.Fifty years after the birth of Mary, Peg receives a phone call from her daughter. They are reunited and the family only grows bigger and stronger because of their love. They share many stories of what each other missed out on but as the stories are told new details emerge. The story that Peg told of the adoption and giving Mary away don't match up to the letters documents that Mary possesses. After Mick's passing, Peg cleans out the closets and stumbles across these documents that Mary shared with her. Fighting past the trauma of giving Mary up at such a young age, memories come flooding back and a new truth of what actually happened comes to light - Mary lived with the nuns at the abbey for a year. On the back deck, Peg and Mary continue their beautiful relationship and reflect upon how wonderful, despite all the heartache, their lives turned out.
Download or read book Sinners Scroungers Saints written by Pat Thane and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-05 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Covers the stories of unwed mothers and one of the voluntary organization that supported them throughout the century: The National Council for the Unmarried Mother and Her Child (which renamed itself), The National Council for One Parent Families, (and is now, after a merger, called Gingerbread).
