The Girls Who Went Away
The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the DecadesBefore Roe v. Wade
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Word Count
90,500 words, Guess
Page Count
362 pages
Identifiers
- Internet Archivegirlswhowentaway00annf
- ISBN-100143038974
- ISBN-139780143038979
- Goodreads146070
- LibraryThing932607
and 4 more
- Library of Congress Control Number2005058179
- OCLC Control Number145508919
- Better World Books9780143038979
- Open LibraryOL7361755M
Classifications
- LCCHV875.55 .F465 2007
Description
In this deeply moving and myth-shattering work, Ann Fessler brings out into the open for the first time 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. 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.1. My Own Story as an Adoptee2. Breaking the SilenceDorothy IIAnnie3. Good Girls v. Bad GirlsNancy IClaudia4. Discovery and ShameMargeYvonne5. The Family's FearsJeanetteRuth6. Going AwayKaren IPam7. Birth and SurrenderMargaretLeslie8. The AftermathSusan IIIMadeline9. Search and ReunionSusan IIJennifer10. Talking and ListeningLydiaLinda I11. Every Mother but My OwnA Note on the InterviewsNotesAcknowledgmentsIndex
Description
This book brings to light the lives of 1.5 million single American women in the years following World War II who, under enormous social and family pressure, were coerced to give up their newborn children. It tells not of wild and carefree sexual liberation, but rather of a devastating double standard that has had punishing long-term effects on these women and on the children they gave up. Single pregnant women were shunned by family and friends, evicted from schools, sent away to maternity homes to have their children alone, and often treated with cold contempt by doctors, nurses, and clergy. The majority of the women interviewed by Fessler, herself an adoptee, have never spoken of their experiences, and most have been haunted by grief and shame their entire adult lives.--From publisher description.
Subjects
Other Editions
- The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the DecadesBefore Roe v. Wade
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