The Mother of Modern Adoption
September 7, 2015 5:20 PM   Subscribe

Georgia Tann was an influential adoption advocate who popularized adoption in the US from 1920s to the 1950s. She arranged adoptions for movie stars like Joan Crawford and Lana Turner and essentially devised the modern closed adoption. But Tann's babies were not necessarily unwanted, and in fact she frequently stole them from poor parents or told parents their children were dead. Worse, the children in her care were often neglected or abused, and Tann would adopt children to anyone with the money to pay her exorbitant fees. Remarkably, Tann's legacy of corruption, neglect, and child theft went unremarked until after her death.
posted by sciatrix (26 comments total) 22 users marked this as a favorite
 
Completely horrific.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 5:33 PM on September 7, 2015


Am I the only person who took one look at Tann's photo and thought "Dolores Umbridge!". Because yuck.
posted by Hermione Granger at 5:37 PM on September 7, 2015 [1 favorite]


This is terrible. How could she do so much harm for so many years??? Decades stealing and harming infants and kids. Truly terrifying.
posted by CrazyLemonade at 5:42 PM on September 7, 2015


One thing I found really interesting about Tann is that the purpose of the closed adoption--that is, obscuring the paper trail of children she adopted out and giving them a new birth certificate and everything--wasn't so much for the child's sake, but was something she did in order to make her abusive practices less obvious. It's interesting to see the ramifications her work had on adoption practices, even just as a matter of cultural inertia. (E.g., "adoptions are closed because it's the way things are done here.")

Of course, I just found out about this today, so while I'm very interested it's also totally possible I'm barking up the wrong tree here. I'd love it if someone else who knows more about adoption history more generally would chime in.
posted by sciatrix at 5:52 PM on September 7, 2015 [12 favorites]


This is terrible. How could she do so much harm for so many years???

She was providing babies to people willing to pay generously for them, and not ask questions. And, adoption at that time was largely unregulated and very much a behind-closed-doors thing (outside of orphanages, homes for unwed mothers, and the like, of course). The invisible hand at work.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:58 PM on September 7, 2015 [7 favorites]


I am not really bothered by my addition records being closed, but that is probably just me. The state I was born in would allow me to get the records, for a substantial fee. I've never really had any interest, though.
posted by wierdo at 6:06 PM on September 7, 2015 [1 favorite]


My records were closed, as well. In Indiana, they have a registry where adoptees and birth moms can have the record opened if they both agree. It isn't promoted at all.

I had to enlist the help of a detective to get enough information to track down my birth mom. That was back in the 80's. The adoption agency my wife work for requires all adoption they handle be open.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:14 PM on September 7, 2015 [3 favorites]


Sealed adoption records were never for the sake of the children in any of the states that eventually sealed their records, all states in the US except Kansas and Alaska which never had sealed records. A number of states have unsealed their records to adopted adults in the last 20 years, with no ill effects. In those states, and the two that were always open, no adopted person has to request their original birth certificate; if they have no interest that is a personal choice. But those who do wish to see the document of their birth should have a right to get it, without having to go to court or do more than the rest of us have to do to obtain a birth certificate from the state.

Georgia Tann and her crimes have been well known in the adoption reform community for a long time. Sealed records were used by black market adoption providers like Tann to cover their crimes, were used by some adoptive parents as an excuse not to tell their children they were adopted, and were assumed to protect surrendering mothers from the stigma of having borne an illegitimate child. They were never about protecting the adoptee, especially as adopted adults are denied the right to learn about their own history and biological parentage.

Sealed adoption records have outlived their dubious usefulness, in this age of open adoptions, Facebook searches, and DNA testing to determine genetic heritage. Crooked operations like Tann's thrive in the climate of secrecy and shame that sealed adoption records engendered. It is time to give all adopted adults who want it access to their own history and birth record, and leave secrets and lies in the past.
posted by mermayd at 6:25 PM on September 7, 2015 [22 favorites]


Meanwhile, in Spain...
posted by Sys Rq at 6:37 PM on September 7, 2015


(Well, meanwhile-ish. I suppose "later" would be more accurate...)
posted by Sys Rq at 6:39 PM on September 7, 2015 [1 favorite]


So the governor announced all this shit as she was *literally* on her death bed, ensuring there would be no justice for her.

But, even more disturbingly, there is no account of any justice for any of the people she bribed, co-conspirators, or fucking ANYBODY.

I'm willing to accept that she was the face of this operation, and that she was 'thrown under the bus' (not at all, actually, the finger was pointed at her as she was dying), but at the very least there is a network of co-conspirators that were allowed to escape justice.

Presumably some of those folks continued working in the adoption field, or working within the ranks of government offices.

Essentially, it seems to me there is a lot of untold history here, untold history that is protecting the guilty.
posted by el io at 6:56 PM on September 7, 2015 [4 favorites]


My standard line now when people ask me about open vs closed adoptions is to say "You can either do all the work now or you can make your kid have to do it by themselves much later when it's harder." And if you can't handle the emotions of an open adoption at the easiest possible stage at the start, then how the hell do you think you're prepared to handle parenting the emotions of a young teenager coming to terms with their adoption?

Sometimes the parents get a clue and wake up when they see their kids struggle as teenagers. Not often, but sometimes.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 7:17 PM on September 7, 2015 [7 favorites]


I've never heard of this woman, but I have heard of a number of other horrifically corrupt adoption agencies. In Canada, there was Nova Scotia's Ideal Maternity Home, the owners of which would steal babies from their clients by telling them their babies had died and also deliberately starve "unadoptable" babies to death on a diet of molasses and water. In Ireland, the Magdalena laundries did a booming business selling babies to wealthy Americans. I am sure there are many more such cases.
posted by orange swan at 7:19 PM on September 7, 2015 [2 favorites]


Sciatrix you are indeed barking up the right tree. Adoption records were closed in the 20th century largely to legitimize the newly formed adoptive family. There was never any notion of protecting the privacy of birth mothers. As proof, one only needs to know this: When a woman gives her child up for adoption, that is not when the records are sealed. Records are sealed only upon finalization of adoption. Time passes between these two events; sometimes years. Sometimes many years. Some children live their lives in adopted in foster care. (A century ago they would have grown up in orphanages.) These children's identities aren't unknown to them as long as they remain unadopted. A child who is never adopted will not have to suffer the uniquely inhumane 20th and 21st century ritual of begging the state to open their sealed adoption records.

I was adopted in 1969 in Virginia. It took me 25 years of searching on my own to find my birth family. They have, to a one, welcomed me with open arms. But the law in Virginia says I'm still not entitled to my sealed adoption records, including my original birth certificate. That was sealed away for all time upon my adoption finalization. The birth certificate my adoptive parents received upon my adoption finalization says my adoptive mother gave birth to me in a hospital, and that forceps were used. My adoptive mother never set foot in that hospital, and she has never seen a set of forceps. The amended birth certificate was issued to provide adoptive families a way to disappear the fact an adoption had occurred, if they so chose.

Georgia Tann was a monster. And the local and state level corruption that allowed her to operate with impunity set the the stage for what are still monstrous adoption policies in most U.S. states. As further evidence, most U.S. states have changed their laws regarding sealed records--but only for children adopted after around the 1990s. If you were unlucky enough to be adopted between about the 1940s to the 1990s in the U.S., you're likely to hail from most of the states still acting as though it's terribly important to keep your original identity a state-sponsored secret.
posted by ImproviseOrDie at 9:11 PM on September 7, 2015 [10 favorites]


The following states have records open to adopted adults, no restrictions:
Alabama, Alaska, Kansas, Maine, New Hampshire, and Oregon. Oregon's law was changed by ballot initiative, proving that the majority of voters today support adoptee rights if given the chance. It is politicians in the pocket of special interest groups that impeding the progress of this simple right in other states.

Other states have a confusing array of laws that make the records partially open, some with bizarre time frames, others where biological mothers can forbid access. Many states are still fully sealed, with politicians going into a frenzy of fear about the "terrible" results to society if adoptees are allowed their own birth certificates, and a gallant and patriarchal claim to be "protecting" birth mothers, even when scores of us have shown up to testify that we were never promised such protection and do not need it. For more information on birth records, check out American Adoption Congress, Bastard Nation and for information on birth mother issues, check out Concerned United Birthparents.

ImproviseOrDie makes an important point; that in cases where a child is not adopted, the records are never sealed, names are not changed, and the surrendering mother has no right to redact her name from anything. Nor has anyone yet found a surrender paper in any state where the surrendering mother was legally promised privacy or anything else. Mothers giving up a child surrender all rights, and if dealing with an agency, give the rights to that child to the agency, presumably to then transfer to adoptive parents, but that does not always happen, and the mother is not notified since she has already surrendered all rights. It is ridiculous to assert years later that the surrendering mother retains one right over her adult child, the right to forbid him access to his own correct original birth certificate.
posted by mermayd at 3:58 AM on September 8, 2015 [1 favorite]


Here is a book about Georgia Tann that I do not think has been referenced yet:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Baby-Thief-Corrupted-Adoption/dp/1402758634
posted by mermayd at 5:32 AM on September 8, 2015


My heart hurts for all those families broken apart by greed. What an awful person.


side note: I really wanted to read the second link to this, but the daily mail website is so horrible. do we have to link to them?
posted by greenish at 5:56 AM on September 8, 2015


unfortunately it was by far the best, most thorough single piece I was able to find.
posted by sciatrix at 6:24 AM on September 8, 2015 [1 favorite]


My standard line now when people ask me about open vs closed adoptions

Where is that even an option anymore? We weren't interested in a closed adoption, but every avenue we investigated when we were choosing an agency for our search was plainly blunt that through them it was open or nothing. Which isn't to say there wasn't some interest; there was a couple at an open house for a larger search operation who pushed back on it pretty hard. We couldn't think of a charitable explanation as to why they'd want one.
posted by phearlez at 9:41 AM on September 8, 2015


Closed adoptions are an option where they always have been, where you pay enough money to get whatever you want, and it you want a closed adoption and can pay, that's what you get. In other words, closed adoptions continue to exist in the dark money-driven underbelly of adoption practice that existed in Tann's time and still exists today in the West and in many parts of the world. Some prospective adoptive parents who want a closed adoption, with no pesky birth mother to deal with, go to international adoption. Some deal with unscrupulous adoption providers in the US who promise surrendering mothers open adoptions, but advise the adoptive parents to close the adoption as soon as the adoption is legally finalized, leaving the birth mother with no recourse because open adoption agreements are not legally enforceable in most states.

The adoption industry, internationally and in the USA and other Western countries, is sorely in need of reform, transparency and oversight to insure that all adoptions are ethical, necessary, and most of all really in the best interest of the children involved.
posted by mermayd at 10:20 AM on September 8, 2015 [1 favorite]


I would be interested in more concrete numbers/examples of the prevalence of closed adoption than "people with power do corrupt things and people with less power are more easily fucked over," which I would obviously not dispute at all.

I wonder what the right solution is to deal with people who violate open adoption agreements. It's clearly not in the best interest of the child (and probably not be in the interest of the birth mother) to unwind an adoption, so what do you do to put teeth in the thing? Maybe it's as simple as financial penalties; perhaps parents who are willing to act outside the interest of their child by cutting off that communication will be more motivated by their wallets? A depressing thought.
posted by phearlez at 11:07 AM on September 8, 2015


Just a note about semantics: Somewhere in this thread, closed records was transmuted into closed adoptions. They are far from the same thing. Closed records is the term generally used in the 43 US states where adoptees cannot have access to their unaltered adoption records, including their birth certificates. Or they can have the records, sometimes, with the permission of other people, even if the adoptees themselves are adults, even elderly adults.)

A closed adoption, on the other hand, means records are sealed away for the duration of the childhood of the adoptee. A closed adoption can happen in a state with open records laws. Meaning that a child can be subject to a closed adoption but can, upon reaching a certain age or other circumstances in the state's regulation, have a right (or a very limited right, and only with the permission of others, like in TN and MD) to access the once closed records.

That's all. Please carry on.
posted by ImproviseOrDie at 4:41 PM on September 8, 2015


Babies for Sale: The Tennessee Children's Home Adoption Scandal is another great book on the scandalous Tann era in TN adoptions.
posted by ImproviseOrDie at 4:44 PM on September 8, 2015


That's not how I would define open or closed adoption, at least not in the remotely contemporary sense. We have an open adoption because we have contact with our son's birthmother, and such was always the intent and plan. The level of contact within an open adoption may vary; our birthmother initially indicated she wanted very little and we gently encouraged more, though she was free to ask us to back off. Our actual contact is more monthly, as it turns out.

A closed adoption is what I'd describe as a situation with no birthparent contact. As mermayd says, that's often the practical upshot of an international adoption assuming it wasn't the flat-out intention. And there's a lot of indication that the distance & lack of contact is a motivating force for a non-zero number of folks who adopt internationally.

I would probably say "sealed adoption" to describe adoptions like my wife's, which was brokered through the state when she was a baby and where the records are closed to her unless she petitions and her birth parent agrees. I'd more likely say "sealed adoption record" though.
posted by phearlez at 6:40 PM on September 8, 2015


I'd more likely say "sealed adoption record" though.

Exactly. I'm arguing we shouldn't conflate the adoption practice and the adoption records in this thread, that's all. Closed adoptions are not the same thing as closed (or sealed) records.
posted by ImproviseOrDie at 2:12 AM on September 9, 2015


The abuse continues.

That is still being done to us mothers and considered "the right thing" by a society that turns a blind eye.

We have spoken our voices, but we get crushed by a society that is in love with adoption as a sweet thing, the right thing. A society that protects the feelings of the powerful, of those who profit from adoption-- from every having to see the destruction and aftermath of the women and families it destroys.

Even in open adoption, and I have one... the mother whose child was taken dare not speak her pain, dare not state this is NOT a "situation between equals" anymore than a survival sex situation between someone who needs food and someone who has food is a relationship based on equality and consent.

It is abuse of the vulnerable. And it (infant adoption) is not about children or we would be finding homes for thousands of foster children in this country instead of spending millions of dollars on advertising and coercion tactics to persuade women of coveted infants to believe they are unworthy of their children and hand them over.
posted by xarnop at 4:22 AM on September 9, 2015 [3 favorites]


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