04031nam 2200601Ia 450 991080919410332120240416151207.00-674-04091-010.4159/9780674040915(CKB)1000000000786868(StDuBDS)AH23050801(SSID)ssj0000251944(PQKBManifestationID)11239758(PQKBTitleCode)TC0000251944(PQKBWorkID)10175306(PQKB)11644310(Au-PeEL)EBL3300419(CaPaEBR)ebr10318412(OCoLC)923110586(DE-B1597)574442(DE-B1597)9780674040915(MiAaPQ)EBC3300419(EXLCZ)99100000000078686820050809e20062002 uy 0engur|||||||||||txtccrStrangers and kin the American way of adoption /Barbara Melosh1st ed.Cambridge, Mass. ;London Harvard University Press20061 online resource (x, 326 p.)Originally published: 2002.0-674-00912-6 0-674-01953-9 Includes bibliographical references and index.Preface Introduction 1. Wanted--A Child To Raise as Our Own: Claiming Strangers as Kin 2. Families by Design: "Fitness" and "Fit" in the Creation of Kin 3. The "Best Solution": Adoption Embraced 4. Redrawing the Boundaries: Transracial and International Adoption 5. "Tell It Slant": Adoption and Disclosure 6. Adoption Challenged: Beyond the Best Solution Epilogue Notes Index'Strangers and Kin' is the history of adoption, a quintessentially American institution in its buoyant optimism, generous spirit and confidence in social engineering. Barbara Melosh tells the story of how married couples without children sought to care for and nurture other people's children as their own.Strangers and Kin is the history of adoption, a quintessentially American institution in its buoyant optimism, generous spirit, and confidence in social engineering. An adoptive mother herself, Barbara Melosh tells the story of how married couples without children sought to care for and nurture other people's children as their own. It says much about the American experience of family across the twentieth century and our shifting notions of kinship and assimilation. Above all, it speaks of real people striving to make families out of strangers. In the early twentieth century, childless adults confronted orphanages reluctant to entrust their wards to the kindness of strangers. By the 1930's, however, the recently formed profession of social work claimed a new expertise--the science and art of child placement--and adoption became codified in law. It flourished in the United States, reflecting our ethnic diversity, pluralist ideals, and pragmatic approach to family. Then, in the 1960's, as the sexual revolution reshaped marriage, motherhood, and women's work, adoption became a less attractive option and the number of adoptive families precipitously declined. Taking this history into the early twenty-first century, Melosh offers unflinching insight to the contemporary debates that swirl around adoption: the challenges to adoption secrecy; the ethics and geopolitics of international adoption; and the conflicts over transracial adoption. This gripping history is told through poignant stories of individuals, garnered from case records long inaccessible to others, and captures the profound losses and joys that make adoption a lifelong process.AdoptionUnited StatesHistoryAdoptionUnited StatesAdoptionHistory.Adoption362.7340973Melosh Barbara1717934MiAaPQMiAaPQMiAaPQBOOK9910809194103321Strangers and kin4114554UNINA