The Traffic in Babies: Cross-Border Adoption and Baby-Selling between the United States and Canada, 1930-1972
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by Karen A. Balcom
University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 2011
448 pp., illus., $35 paperback
Although indigenous groups practised forms of adoption for centuries, legal adoption among North Americans of European descent was not a frequent occurrence prior to the 1930s.
That changed, however, during the Depression and World War II, when the number of surrendered or endangered children increased, along with the cost of running orphanages and the demand by affluent would-be parents. Gradually, permanent placement with a family was seen as a positive outcome, particularly as theories in social work evolved to recognize the power of nurture over nature.
Unfortunately, the blessings of adoption came with evil triplets: a lack of agency licensing and supervision; forty-eight state and nine provincial legal jurisdictions; and the black-market sale of babies.
Karen A. Balcom’s The Traffic in Babies provides a unique and fascinating look at how child welfare changed in just forty years. It examines the challenges social workers faced as they tried to improve the standard of care for children and to find common ground with their sister agencies on both sides of the border.
This review appeared in the August-September 2012 issue of Canada's History magazine.
— Tanja Hütter (Read bio)
Tanja Hütter is Online Manager for Canada's History Society and a pragmatic idealist.