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    The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade
    The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade
    The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade
    Audiobook12 hours

    The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade

    Written by Ann Fessler

    Narrated by Coleen Marlo

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    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, 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.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateMar 8, 2016
    ISBN9781494589493
    The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade

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    Reviews for The Girls Who Went Away

    4/5

    266 ratings30 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Ann Fessler?s book chronicles the lives of young, single women who gave up their children for adoption in the 1950s and 60s. That what was allowed to happen to them was still going on in my lifetime is shocking to me. No sex education, no assistance, no rights, no choice. Just a little empathy would have been nice, but there was none of that either. If you?re in your 60s then this is your generation?s history, in your 30s-50s, it?s a horror story of what may have been and for women in their teens and 20s, a cautionary tale about not taking your rights lightly. The women interviewed here are your mothers, sisters, best friends, neighbors and co-workers. Don?t fool yourself into thinking this couldn?t possibly have affected you, you may never know. The secrecy of their situations and the shame they were made to feel may still remain to this day. The callous manner in which they were treated is absolutely appalling. The stories presented here are interspersed with facts and together make for an engaging, heartbreaking read. This is a non-fiction work that, bizarrely enough, reminded me of Margaret Atwood?s The Handmaids Tale. Their gut-wrenching stories deserve to be told ? finally.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Wonderful book with great heart. Read for a NF readers' group ... the discussion was amazing ... lots of people in the group had been affected by adoption and this book opened our eyes to what the mostly young mothers went through. Amazing that parents could abandon their 13 and 14-year-old daughters to such a system.
    • 4/5
      This social history was so compelling and interesting. I was shocked at some of the stories and think of how far we have come.
    • 5/5
      I am a birth mother and this book has been a real support in making sense of decades of anger, resentment, curiosity and yearning love. I recently reunited with my birth son after 35 years and I am proud to be his mother and grandmother to two precious grandchildren. Still overwhelmed by the number of women like myself who survived this torturous practice of surrender without a choice.
    • 2/5
      adult nonfiction; sociology. Interesting personal accounts of birth mothers' experiences when made to surrender their children (also, stories of how they got pregnant in the first place). The data-driven sections get a bit dry/drawn out at times; would of course be of the most interest to people with similar stories.
    • 4/5
      The Girls Who Went Away tells the stories of the young women of the 1950s and 60s who became pregnant outside of wedlock and surrendered their babies for adoption. At that time, it was common for unwed girls and women to be sent away to wait out their pregnancy in an institution, pressured into relinquishing their children, and then returned to their old lives and told to pretend that it had never happened. This was thought to protect the girls, their babies and their families from the stigma of illegitimacy; instead, it created a group of young women forced to deal with heartbreaking grief and loss in an atmosphere of absolute silence and denial. Author Ann Fessler combines brief summaries of the sociological factors that led to the warehousing of unwed mothers with deeply compelling narratives from the mothers themselves. These first-person stories are the heart of the book as the mothers express the powerlessness, shame and fear they endured and their regrets about the relationships they never had with their lost children. Some of the stories end with reuniting of mother and now-grown child, but the pain and grief linger.This book was a fascinating read. My only objection was that the narratives did start to run together after a while, which made me appreciate the mothers who included more details of the times they lived in, which helped their experiences stand out a bit more. They were all informative and moving. These women and their stories provide an enlightening view of the toll a conformist society requires from its members and a glimpse of history that has only recently emerged from the shadows.
    • 4/5
      Ann Fessler has written a powerful book with "The Girls Who Went Away," which tells the stories of mothers (mostly teenagers) who were forced to give their babies up for adoption during the Baby Scoop Era. Unmarried women who found themselves pregnant were usually shipped off to maternity homes-- where they resided until their babies were taken from them in the adoptions they were expected to agree to -- whether they really wanted to or not. Women already facing disapproval of their families, friends and clergymen were compelled to give their babies up -- and their stories of the ramifications of that decision were heart-breaking.
    • 5/5
      I really want to get a copy of this book to the various people who've told me adoption's the best solution for unintended pregnancies. Heartbreaking stories of girls who, with little or no options, had to relinquish their children and live with pain of separation for years.

      Really makes me glad I live post Roe v. Wade. Even if it's one of the most difficult decisions to make, at least women today can make their own choice. Back then, women were hidden, shamed into silence.
    • 3/5
      The multitude of personal anecdata was moving, but I think you could probably quit halfway through and get the best out of the book.
    • 4/5
      I’m not sure what drew me to this book. I’m not adopted, and I’m not aware of anyone close to me who was either adopted or surrendered a child for adoption. But it was probably the subtitle that pulled me in: ‘The hidden history of women who surrendered children for adoption in the decades before Roe v. Wade.’

      The ‘solution’ to unplanned pregnancies for many anti-choice people is for the woman to carry the pregnancy to term and then surrender the child for adoption. That of course doesn’t solve the issue for women who don’t want to be pregnant (regardless of whether they want to raise their child). But it also really doesn’t take into account the impact surrendering a child for adoption has on many of the women who give birth.

      This book is, to borrow a totally clichéd phrase, heart-wrenching. The focus is primarily on the middle-class white women who, between the mid-1940s and mid-1960s found themselves pregnant and (sometimes, although not always) alone. Ms. Fessler points out that during that time white women in the U.S. were surrendering children at a rate many times that of black women, which in part explains why the vast majority of the women she spoke to come from this demographic. The overwhelming common thread in these stories is not care for the young women, or even care for the children they gave birth to; instead, it seemed most families were mostly just concerned about being embarrassed by their daughters, and these young women were punished for that.

      And it’s always the daughters. It appears that, for the most part, the young men and boys involved in the pregnancy were not affected – they certainly weren’t kicked out of high school like their pregnant girlfriends (which was the law in some places), and they weren’t sent away to maternity homes to finish out the nine months, deliver the child, and have the child taken away. Sounds kind of familiar, doesn’t it? Young teen and single moms are often derided still today, but I don’t see anyone going after the men who were just as present at the time of conception.

      There’s so much wrong with what so many of these women went through. From not being informed of their rights, to being treated like crap by parents who clearly didn’t know how to care enough about their children (only about how the rest of the town might talk about them), these young women tell their stories throughout Ms. Fessler’s book. Each chapter is filled with quotes from women the author interviewed, and then followed by two chapters that are each one woman’s story told to illustrate the points being made. The biggest take-away for me is that these women should have been given the support they needed to keep their children if they wanted them; they instead were essentially treated like breeders for more ‘worthy’ couples. These women did not owe their children to these couples who wanted to adopt, but the social workers, nuns, priests and maternity home staff seemed to do all they could to convince these women that it was not fair to their children to keep them.
    • 5/5
      “This never happened.”Don Draper says that all the time on Mad Men, and in fact he says it to a character who's in the midst of a breakdown after an unwed pregnancy. Those script writers are good: although they didn’t invent the line, it is fiction: it did happen, and the women never forget.Subtitled, The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade, this is an excellent exploration of the social and legal intolerance of teenage unwed pregnancy and motherhood in 1950s-‘60s USA, with a compelling collection of oral histories from those birth mothers.There wasn’t much contraception and it absolutely wasn’t much available (mostly denied to single women, or accompanied by a big dose of judgment, and condoms were behind the pharmacy counter). Even information about contraception was illegal, and sex education was nil. The 1950s was a period of extreme social conformity and violations came with catastrophic fallout. And it was all on the girl -- reliable proof of paternity wasn’t there yet -- who generally hid it with tight girdles in the early months and disappeared for the latter months to group homes (e.g. Florence Crittenton; typically under the guise of an illness or caring for a family member) and then adoption.They said, “You can’t raise the baby alone.” But no one expects a widow to give up her baby because her husband dies, do they? No. It’s punitive.I’ve always appreciated Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972 for its mandate of equal sports opportunities for women, but until now I didn’t realize its provision was broader -- No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance -- prohibiting high schools and colleges from expelling pregnant girls and teenage mothers.And I marked dozens of passages despite my having lived at the late edge of the time. My older sister’s husband only learned in his 50s that (while he was away at college) his younger sister had been sent away and her teen pregnancy never revealed. I shudder at the lifelong burden these women bear (it reminds me of The Things They Carried and the narrator’s guilt that he conformed by serving in Vietnam rather than resisting -- following his beliefs and seeking refuge in Canada):One of the questions that come up when you go to court and relinquish is they ask you if you have been coerced in any way, and I thought it was the height of hypocrisy. Of course you’re coerced. You’re coerced by your parents, who said, “Don’t come home again if you plan to keep that child. We’re not going to help you.” You’re coerced by everyone around you because of the shame and the lack of acceptance by society and your community. You’re not acknowledged as a fit mother because you had sex before marriage. The judge congratulated me on how courageous I was. I was furious that he would tell me it was about courage. It was about defeat. It was totally about shame and defeat.
    • 3/5
      Not sure why I picked this up in the bookstore- it was on one of the tables, and looked interesting.
      I picked it up, leafed through, and then I was hooked- I found it in the library, and basically wolfed it in one afternoon.

      A careful, insightful study of what women went through in the 50's and 60's, when getting pregnant out of wedlock was severely stigmatized, and the effects of giving up their children weren't talked about.
    • 3/5
      Very powerful and moving.
    • 3/5
      An interesting topic and I thought this book was very unique. Some of the stories were sad, especially the ones where the adoptees did not go to very good homes or were no longer interested in staying in touch with the birth mother who worked so hard to find them, I'd want that kind of relationship! It's astounding how these young women had been lied to! I'm very curious to read up on the stories of the young black women who went thru these same experiances....Nice cover!
    • 5/5
      Ann Fessler is an adopted daughter of an adopted daughter, and her art is photography, not creative writing; so most of this excellent book consists of stories from women, in their own words of the suffering they have experienced. She ties the stories together and places them in historical context.I wish every woman who was lied to, forced or coerced into giving a baby up for adoption could read this book. Fessler describes how alone they feel, often for life. I'm sure it would help for them to know how many other women had been in he same circumstances - told for their whole pregnancy that they were not fit to be a mother then expected to be a fine mother later when their sex was "official". There were several women in the book who told about their overwhelming life long anger. Here's one: I think this whole experience has made me incredibly strong. But if I had not been reunited with my daughter, I don't think it would have made me strong. I think I would have continued to be very, very, very angry until I died of a heart attack. Fortunately there are stories of reunion and women coming to terms with their decision. But not all women are so lucky.Another comment from the same woman Listen, you know, I've gotten to the point in my life that when I see something that I really long for, I know it's not for me. That's when I realized what losing her had done. My experience was...that what I wanted was going to be held up in front of me and I was going to look at it but I could never have it. Just like the nurse holding her up. That's what it does.According to Fessler, early in the 20th century when "unwed women's homes" were run by charity the staff might be likely to assist a woman to keep her baby, even find a way to help her get education or a job. However, after social workers took control of the system they seem to have worked it as a way to provide those they considered worthy with the children they longed for as they took advantage of women who had he audacity to have sex outside of marriage. For a while they labeled these women as feebleminded which often lead to their being sterilized and/or institutionalized. Later they were termed perverted or delinquent - obviously incapable of parenting - and again liable to be institutionalized. Later still they were just termed neurotic - not institutionalized, but not assisted either. This is an eye-opening, heart breaking book recommended to anyone interested in adoption, women's studies or the humane treatment of people in difficult situations.
    • 4/5
      This book gave me a lot of insight into my mother, who gave a child up for adoption in the late 50's. She will not discuss it to this day. A sad, but ultimately empowering book. Shame on all the people in the 50's and 60' who perpetuated what was essentially the theft of these babies from their mothers.
    • 5/5
      Ann Fessler’s book chronicles the lives of young, single women who gave up their children for adoption in the 1950s and 60s. That what was allowed to happen to them was still going on in my lifetime is shocking to me. No sex education, no assistance, no rights, no choice. Just a little empathy would have been nice, but there was none of that either. If you’re in your 60s then this is your generation’s history, in your 30s-50s, it’s a horror story of what may have been and for women in their teens and 20s, a cautionary tale about not taking your rights lightly. The women interviewed here are your mothers, sisters, best friends, neighbors and co-workers. Don’t fool yourself into thinking this couldn’t possibly have affected you, you may never know. The secrecy of their situations and the shame they were made to feel may still remain to this day. The callous manner in which they were treated is absolutely appalling. The stories presented here are interspersed with facts and together make for an engaging, heartbreaking read. This is a non-fiction work that, bizarrely enough, reminded me of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaids Tale. Their gut-wrenching stories deserve to be told – finally.
    • 4/5
      The surprise? Every single woman was filled with regret and anger due to giving up her child. Many, if not most, felt this ruined their lives. A shocking book for me. I’d anticipated that most women simply went on with their lives, happy to have avoided all the problems raising a child without a marriage would have entailed. Wrong.
    • 3/5
      Bleak as fuck. Rides the line between footnoted sociological academic text and personal history in the same genre that's taken to the extreme (to superb effect) in [Book: Mama Lola], tho this one ultimately falls on the side of academic objectivity. Nice usage of oral history.
    • 4/5
      Fascinating! Thank you to the women who came forward to share their stories. You certainly enlightened my beliefs on reproductive issues, and provided a major piece of social history that otherwise may have never been recorded. It always shocks and amazes me how earlier generations of women were treated by their families and by society. Thank you for paving the way, and allowing me to have the freedoms that I do today.
    • 5/5
      A fascinating social history—I wish there were more on this topic, in fact I think this may be the only book-length study of birth mothers. When people talk about adoption they tend to focus on the child and the adoptive family, and the feelings of the birth family get kind of left in the dust. This book confirmed many of the suspicions I had about adoption: that it's incredibly traumatizing and the mothers never get over it. The pro-life crowd tries to convince mothers to have their babies by telling them about the emotional trauma caused by abortion. Adoption is no better and may be worse. I think anyone who is an adoptee, or is considering placing their child for adoption, or is adopting a child, should read this.
    • 5/5
      On a complete accident I managed to stumble across The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade on GoodReads while typing in another title and I have found a new love, which is surprising because I rarely, if ever, read non-fiction works.I am surprised that his book did not get more press coverage when it was published because (a) it discusses something that most people tried to hush up and (b) it calls for pro-choice.I cannot seem to put into words how much I enjoyed this book other than this a powerful book that I think everyone on both sides of this debate should read.I, personally, am a big advocate for real sex education in high schools like how to put on rubbers and such. Not this pansy abstinence only sex education that teaches kids that condoms aren’t affective so they shouldn’t even bother. This book only reaffirmed that belief for me but it also helped me understand why people are also against abortion. Many of these women who were forced to give up their babies and never given the chance to be mothers to their children said they still do not regret having their child.The Girls Who Went Away puts into words what I cannot. It’s gripping and emotional and something I wish I was able to say came from my own personal bookshelf. “Obviously, no one would want to advocate early sexual activity among teenagers, but leaving young people uninformed only postpones and complicates the problem-a problem that ultimately becomes one of unplanned pregnancy.” {pg.296} “If they’re going to do away with Roe v. Wade, I’m afraid I’m going to have to get on a train. I’ll be in Washington to protest, because I can’t even imagine the injustice of it for every girl who follows behind me. It’s such a knife in the heart of the women of this country. And threat comes from a Catholic!” –Maureen II {pg. 296-297} “You know what? You’re gonna forget all about, you’re gonna go home, and you’re gonna met a nice young man, and you’re gonna get married, and you’re gonna have other babies, and you’re never even gonna remember you had this one.” {pg. 325}
    • 5/5
      Absolutely amazing book. I was intrigued and truly educated about post WWII social culture. Stunned really by the stories and so happy that we have progressed as a scoiety as far as we have.
    • 4/5
      Effect on girls who were forced to give up babies for adoption.
    • 5/5
      This is an amazing book. Some of the stories are so heartwrenching it actually made me cry while I was reading it. I was highly impressed with this book. It focuses on an issue that is not talked about much. The girls who got pregnant before abortion was legalized had very little options and many were forced to give up their children. This is a study on the whole women's right to choose issue, adoption, as well as a study of American society and morality. The author did a great deal of interviews with women who were the "girls who went away." It is an amazing book from start to finish. I highly recommend this to anyone who is interested in women studies, abortion, adoption, and American society pre-roe v. wade.
    • 3/5
      This book is a detailed and organized look at the process of adoption as it existed from the last 1940s until the mid 1970s, before abortion was legalized in the United States. Rich in personal interviews and stories told by the women themselves, this book usefully describes one point of view about the adoption process. This book cannot in any way, however, be described as a balanced look at adoption. This book includes only stories from women who were deceived, coerced, intimidated or otherwise misled into giving up their children. These women claim to have all wanted to keep their children, and would have, but for outside influences, kept their babies. I am not calling their stories into doubt, but there is certainly a whole other side to the issue - the stories of women who were grateful to give up their children, and who did not seek to find the children after the fact. This side of the equation is not mentioned except briefly, in two sentences, and without a more detailed look at this opposing viewpoint, the book feels unbalanced and incomplete. Perhaps the author's status as an adopted child, and the fact that she makes her living from telling stories of adoption, created a bias that could not be overcome. Make no mistake - the book is well written and compelling, as it tells half of the story. It is not a fair and open look, however.
    • 4/5
      Very, very sad.
    • 5/5
      This is a powerful look based on the author's oral history of hundreds of women who gave birth and gave their babies up for adoption. The effects of this tragedy are staggering. This is such an important piece of history that we should all know about.
    • 4/5
      This book took me back to my teen years, when my best friend "went away." She came back and she was different - I never knew why we were no longer friends. Now I know. This book, often repetitive, tells the story of giving up one's child from every possible perspective. The interviews with the birth mothers were heartbreaking and well presented. Overall, this was a very interesting and compelling book. Makes me thankful that these practices have been replaced with options for young girls today - at least to some degree.
    • 5/5
      Absolutely shattering. The book presents enough histories to both demonstrate the different experiences young, unwed mothers went through, and also show just how common many aspects of the experience were. It is difficult for me to imagine what it was like to be raised in the times these women came of age in. This book was often difficult to read, but worth it.