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The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction Revised ed. Edition, Kindle Edition

4.4 out of 5 stars 82

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In 1859, the New York Times termed urban orphans the "ulcers of society." By 1864, child welfare crusaders were advocating their adoption by rural families and sending trains full of orphaned and abandoned children westward. As Gordon documents in this compelling account, they were often dumped at the end of the line, where they were taken in by whoever needed or wanted a childAfor any purpose. By the end of the 19th century, the Sisters of Charity's New York Foundling Hospital was cleaning up this well-established practice by carefully matching children with families selected by parish priests. Focusing on the delivery of 40 "white" orphans to Mexican Catholic adoptive families in the Arizona mining towns of Clifton and Morenci in 1904, Gordon vividly describes how the Anglo women of the townAall of them ProtestantsAbecame enraged and instigated a mass abduction of the children, often carried out at gunpoint. A trial ensued, pitting the Foundling Hospital against the Anglo powers of Arizona, which ended up in the U.S. Supreme Court. The Court held that the abduction was legal, and that placing the children with Mexican families had been tantamount to child abuse. In delineating the racial and religious dynamics in turn-of-the-century Arizona (including frontier feminism, the evolution of racial and class structures and the history of copper mining, labor disputes and vigilantism), Gordon reveals a great deal about the origins of "family values" in America. (Nov.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Gordon (history, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison) builds her book around an incident in 1904, when a group of New York Irish orphans was sent to live with Catholic (and Mexican) families in Arizona. Outraged local Anglos then "rescued" the children at gunpoint. This account of the orphan abduction jostles for space amidst an encyclopedic re-creation of the world of Mexican miners in the American Southwest. The tale is so convoluted that the book even includes a list of characters, and the outcome is, predictably, unhappy. More compelling are the background sections that detail everything from how many pestles were in the miners' kitchens (two) to the racial basis for setting mine wages. Throughout, Gordon discusses the hardening racist system in the Southwest. These painstakingly researched chapters could well stand on their own as a powerful history of the miners' lives and a superior case study of emigrant labor at the turn of the century. Recommended for academic libraries.ADuncan Stewart, State Historical Society of Iowa Lib., Iowa City
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B005H0F7SS
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Harvard University Press; Revised ed. edition (February 9, 2011)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ February 9, 2011
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 7215 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 433 pages
  • Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 067400535X
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 out of 5 stars 82

About the author

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Linda Gordon
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Linda Gordon is the Florence Kelley Professor of History at New York University. She is the author of numerous books including Dorothea Lange and Impounded, and won the Bancroft Prize for The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction. She lives in New York.

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
4.4 out of 5
82 global ratings

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