Strangers and Kinis 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 1930s, 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 1960s, 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.

Although case histories from the Children's Bureau of Delaware and American literature and movies are the window into the personal side of this history, Melosh (English and history, George Mason U.) weaves their stories into the national experience with the growth, decline, and constantly changing nature of legal "stranger adoption" in the United States of the 20th century. The change evidenced in the institution reveal a host of shifting social realities, touching upon topics such as concepts of identity and assimilation, social work versus market models of placement, paternalistic liberalism versus ethnic nationalism, expansions of socially accepted individuals, and ideologies of the heterosexual nuclear family. Annotation (c)2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Strangers and Kinis a wonderful addition to the literature on adoption practices in the U.S. today, but it also offers a fresh angle on the general history of assumptions about the nature of the American family. I much appreciated Melosh's even-handedness, her clear and original thinking in an area where positions are so polarized.

Despite their far greater visibility, adoptive families are less common in the US now than they were in the 1950s. In Strangers and Kin, Barbara Melosh tells us why, simultaneously tracing the transformation of adoption over the past century and exploring how it has served as a charged site of American notions of identity, motherhood, family, and nation...Melosh eloquently reveals how in the twentieth-century United States, the practice of turning strangers into kin "became familiar, and how it remains strange" even today...It is both a fascinating cultural history of twentieth-century adoption in the US and a deeply informed study of what it reveals about the shifting concepts of family, identity and the limits of American pluralism...[Melosh's] reasoned, assiduously researched and carefully argued analysis is as thoughtful as readers are likely to find. She is sensitive to her multiple historical subjects as well as to her differently situated readers.

Strangers and Kinis a wonderful addition to the literature on adoption practices in the U.S. today, but it also offers a fresh angle on the general history of assumptions about the nature of the American family. I much appreciated Melosh's even-handedness, her clear and original thinking in an area where positions are so polarized.

Strangers and Kincombines history, popular culture and deft political analysis to tell a fascinating story of adoption's changing face in our society. Melosh shows how adoption policy reflects and illuminates our understanding of family and community, biology and race, self and other. She provides a thoughtful, sensitive, and deeply informed rejection of the new orthodoxy of adoption, and an embrace of adoption's positive potential."

Adoption is a quintessentially American institution, says...Barbara Melosh, in that it embodies optimism, generosity of spirit and confidence in "social engineering." In Strangers and Kin, Melosh offers a history of adoption from the early 20th century to today. Drawing on records of adoptions and individual stories, she presents thoughtful comments on current debates surrounding adoption, including transracial adoption and the ethics of international adoption.

Melosh argues that a brief, post-World War II acceptance of adoption has given way to skepticism--even fear--about embracing outsiders as part of the family. She attempts to explain why in Strangers and Kin...Melosh's book reveals a persistent American ambivalence about the difference of families formed by law, not blood.

Melosh has applied her sharp analytical skills to an archival treasure, the papers of the Children's Bureau of Delaware, a child welfare agency established in 1918. Drawing on narratives contained in these records, she has crafted a nuanced history with a lively forward momentum.

Melosh's brilliant study helps us to understand the ways in which the combined forces of a resurgent sociobiology, cost-benefit market models, and idealized images of natural motherhood have cast adoption into theshadows. We have become a society less generous in opening our homes to strangers who then become kin. Melosh helps us to understand why. Strangers and Kinsupersedes all other books on this vital andfraught topic.

Finally we have a history of adoption that is sensitive to all parties. Based on meticulous archival research, Barbara Melosh's superb book tells modern adoption's complicated and surprising story in a lucid, comprehensive manner, laying to rest many old misconceptions but also raising new questions anyone involved with adoption on the personal or policy level must confront.

Melosh argues that a brief, post-World War II acceptance of adoption hasgiven way to skepticism--even fear--about embracing outsiders as part of the family. Sheattempts to explain why in Strangers and Kin...Melosh's bookreveals a persistent American ambivalence about the difference of families formed by law, notblood.

Taking the history of adoption into the early 21st century, "Strangers and Kin" 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.

Barbara Meloshis Professor of English andHistory at <>George MasonUniversity.

Preface

Introduction

1. Wanted--A Child To Raise as Our Own: Claiming Strangersas Kin

2. Families by Design: "Fitness" and "Fit" in theCreation of Kin

3. The "Best Solution": AdoptionEmbraced

4. Redrawing the Boundaries: Transracial andInternational Adoption

5. "Tell It Slant": Adoption andDisclosure

6. Adoption Challenged: Beyond the Best Solution

Epilogue

Notes

Index