When Massachusetts passed America's first comprehensive adoption law in 1851, the usual motive for taking in an unrelated child was presumed to be the need for cheap labor. But by 1929—the first year that every state had an adoption law—the adoptee's main function was seen as emotional. Little Strangers examines the representations of adoption and foster care produced over the intervening years. Claudia Nelson argues that adoption texts reflect changing attitudes toward many important social issues, including immigration and poverty, heredity and environment, individuality and citizenship, gender, and the family. She examines orphan fiction for children, magazine stories and articles, legal writings, social work conference proceedings, and discussions of heredity and child psychology. Nelson's ambitious scope provides for an analysis of the extent to which specialist and mainstream adoption discourse overlapped, as well as the ways in which adoption and foster care had captivated the public imagination.
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"Nelson's study of the growth of sentimental adoption... is based on thorough research in primary and secondary historical sources... and provides a deep reading of representations of adoption and foster care from 'orphan fiction' and stories in women's magazines.... This study will appeal to anyone intereted in the history of adoption, social welfare, juvenile literture, and childhood and family. Recommended." —Choice
(Choice )From the Publisher
Winner of the Children's Literature Association 2005 Award for Best Scholarly Book.
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Front Cover | Front Flap | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Inside This Book
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First Sentence:
The 1885 poem "Little Orphant Annie," by Hoosier versifier James Whitcomb Riley, profiles a girl "bound out" to earn her own way in the world. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
sentimental adoption, orphan narratives, displaced child, orphanage inmates, orphan fiction, adoption rhetoric, orphan trains, orphan stories, destitute child, adoption workers, informal adoption Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Progressive Era, Miss Gilly, New York Children's Aid Society, United States, New York City, Miss Minchin, Linda Lane, Home Society, Sara Crewe, Timothy's Quest, Ellen Montgomery, Tom Sawyer, Civil War, Miss Avilda, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, New England, Huckleberry Finn, Miss Hildreth, Susan Warner, Tattered Tom, Uncle Benny, African Americans, Anne of Green Gables, Big Brother, Captain Montgomery New!
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Front Cover | Front Flap | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
The 1885 poem "Little Orphant Annie," by Hoosier versifier James Whitcomb Riley, profiles a girl "bound out" to earn her own way in the world. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
sentimental adoption, orphan narratives, displaced child, orphanage inmates, orphan fiction, adoption rhetoric, orphan trains, orphan stories, destitute child, adoption workers, informal adoption Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Progressive Era, Miss Gilly, New York Children's Aid Society, United States, New York City, Miss Minchin, Linda Lane, Home Society, Sara Crewe, Timothy's Quest, Ellen Montgomery, Tom Sawyer, Civil War, Miss Avilda, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, New England, Huckleberry Finn, Miss Hildreth, Susan Warner, Tattered Tom, Uncle Benny, African Americans, Anne of Green Gables, Big Brother, Captain Montgomery New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Front Flap | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 100
books:
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- The Wide, Wide World by Susan Warner on 8 pages
- Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin on 6 pages
- Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (Puffin Classics) by Kate Douglas Wiggin on 6 pages
- Rose in Bloom (Puffin Classics) by Louisa May Alcott on 5 pages
- Tattered Tom: Or, the Story of a Street Arab (Works of Horatio Alger) by Horatio Alger on 4 pages
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