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Like Our Very Own : Adoption and the Changing Culture of Motherhood, 1851-1950 by Julie Berebitsky (2001, Hardcover)

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Like Our Very Own: Adoption and the Changing Culture of Motherhood, 1851-1950

About this product

Product Identifiers

PublisherUniversity Press of Kansas

ISBN-100700610510

ISBN-139780700610518

eBay Product ID (ePID)1767480

Product Key Features

Book TitleLike Our Very Own : Adoption and the Changing Culture of Motherhood, 1851-1950

Number of Pages256 Pages

LanguageEnglish

Publication Year2001

TopicAdoption & Fostering

IllustratorYes

GenreFamily & Relationships

AuthorJulie Berebitsky

FormatHardcover

Dimensions

Item Height0.9 in

Item Weight12.3 Oz

Item Length9.2 in

Item Width6.2 in

Additional Product Features

Intended AudienceTrade

LCCN00-034952

Reviews"Clear, accessible, and painstakingly researched. It will appeal to readers interested in the history of the family and adoption."-- Journal of the Association for Research on Mothering "This is an important book which uses the history of adoption to trace complicated changes in the history of the family."-- Journal of Women's History "An eminently readable and fascinating history of the adoption process and its implications. Recommended for both academic and public libraries."-- Library Journal "An important contribution to our understanding of the history of adoption in the United States."-- American Historical Review, "Thoughtful, provocative, and lucidly written, this fascinating book explores a history that is both largely uncharted and of considerable contemporary interest. Berebitsky argues that early adoption practices held the potential to broaden our cultural ideologies of family and domesticity--but that, as its definition narrowed, adoption came to mirror the biological family, thus losing its utopian appeal."- Barbara Melosh , author of Gender and American History since 1890, "Thoughtful, provocative, and lucidly written, this fascinating book explores a history that is both largely uncharted and of considerable contemporary interest. Berebitsky argues that early adoption practices held the potential to broaden our cultural ideologies of family and domesticity--but that, as its definition narrowed, adoption came to mirror the biological family, thus losing its utopian appeal."-- Barbara Melosh , author of Gender and American History since 1890, "Clear, accessible, and painstakingly researched. It will appeal to readers interested in the history of the family and adoption."Journal of the Association for Research on Mothering "This is an important book which uses the history of adoption to trace complicated changes in the history of the family."Journal of Womens History "An eminently readable and fascinating history of the adoption process and its implications. Recommended for both academic and public libraries."Library Journal "An important contribution to our understanding of the history of adoption in the United States."American Historical Review, "Thoughtful, provocative, and lucidly written, this fascinating book explores a history that is both largely uncharted and of considerable contemporary interest. Berebitsky argues that early adoption practices held the potential to broaden our cultural ideologies of family and domesticitybut that, as its definition narrowed, adoption came to mirror the biological family, thus losing its utopian appeal."Barbara Melosh , author of Gender and American History since 1890

Dewey Edition21

Dewey Decimal362.73/4

Table Of ContentAcknowledgments Introduction 1. Fear, Fulfillment, and Defining "Family": Becoming an Adoptive Parent, the Early Years 2. Rescue a Child and Save the Nation: The Social Construction of Adoption in the Delineator, 1900-1950 3. Redefining "Real" Motherhood: Representations of Adoptive Mothers, 1900-1950 4. "Mother-Women" or "Man-Haters"? The Rise and Fall of Single Adoptive Mothers 5. "The Best" or "Good Enough"? Child-Placing Professionals, Adoptive Parents, and Definitions of Family, 1920-1950 Epilogue Appendix: Children in the Custody of the Pennsylvania Children's Aid Society, 1800-1920 Notes Bibliography Index

SynopsisTalk about adoption has become increasingly politicized, as debates swirl around the morality and viability of various forms of adoption: interracial, international, "open," and those involving single parents or gay and lesbian couples. Paramount in many minds is the threat to the traditional (or mythical) nuclear family. But, as Julie Berebitsky shows, such concerns are fairly recent developments in the history of adoption. Berebitsky reveals that in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the rules governing adoption were much less rigid and adoptive parents and families were considerably more diverse. In Like Our Very Own , she chronicles the experiences of adoptive parents and children during a century of great change, illuminating the prominent role adoption came to play in defining both motherhood and family in America. Drawing on case histories, letters from adoptive parents, congressional records, and fiction and popular magazines of the day, Berebitsky recovers the efforts of single women, African Americans, the elderly, and other marginalized citizens to obtain children of their own. She contends, however, that this diversity gradually diminished during the hundred years between the first adoption laws in 1851 and the postwar "baby boom" era. Adoption social theory and practice was gradually transformed into a highly homogenized model that tried to match children to parents by class and background and that ultimately favored conventional middle class American families. Changing attitudes about adoption, as Berebitsky shows, have also mirrored changing definitions of motherhood. At a time when womanhood and motherhood were socially synonymous, both birth mothers who gave up their children and adoptive mothers seeking a maternal role were viewed as transgressors of the natural order. This eventually changed, but only after proper training and outside expert approval replaced an assumed maternal instinct as the keystone of good mothering. A fascinating chapter in American social and cultural history, Like Our Very Own offers compelling evidence that adoption has always been an important factor in our evolving efforts to define the meaning and nature of both motherhood and family., Talk about adoption has become increasingly politicized, as debates swirl around the morality and viability of various forms of adoption: interracial, international, "open," and those involving single parents or gay and lesbian couples. Paramount in many minds is the threat to the traditional (or mythical) nuclear family. But, as Julie Berebitsky shows, such concerns are fairly recent developments in the history of adoption. Berebitsky reveals that in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the rules governing adoption were much less rigid and adoptive parents and families were considerably more diverse. In Like Our Very Own , she chronicles the experiences of adoptive parents and children during a century of great change, illuminating the prominent role adoption came to play in defining both motherhood and family in America. Drawing on case histories, letters from adoptive parents, congressional records, and fiction and popular magazines of the day, Berebitsky recovers the efforts of single women, African Americans, the elderly, and other marginalized citizens to obtain children of their own. She contends, however, that this diversity gradually diminished during the hundred years between the first adoption laws in 1851 and the postwar "baby boom" era. Adoption social theory and practice was gradually transformed into a highly homogenized model that tried to match children to parents by class and background and that ultimately favored conventional middle class American families. Changing attitudes about adoption, as Berebitsky shows, have also mirrored changing definitions of motherhood. At a time when womanhood and motherhood were socially synonymous, both birth mothers who gave up their children and adoptive mothers seeking a maternal role were viewed as transgressors of the natural order. This eventually changed, but only after proper training and outside expert approval replaced an assumed maternal instinct as the keystone of good mothering. , br>A fascinating chapter in American social and cultural history, Like Our Very Own offers compelling evidence that adoption has always been an important factor in our evolving efforts to define the meaning and nature of both motherhood and family.

LC Classification NumberHV875.B467 2000