The Girls Who Went Away by Ann Fessler (Reread)

January 4, 2013 by Christina

Nonfiction — print. Penguin, 2007. 368 pgs. Library copy. Subtitled “The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade”, Fessler offers women who “went away” to maternity homes, to live with relatives, or were hidden in their own homes and then were forced under enormous family and social pressure to place their children up for adoption the space to finally tell their stories. Some of these women’s experiences are spliced and used […]

Categories: 2013 Reads, Adoption, Nonfiction, North America, Reread, United States • Tags: Ann Fessler

The Girls Who Went Away by Ann Fessler

February 3, 2008 by Christina

In the years after World War II birth control was tightly restricted; abortion was still illegal in most states, and was prohibitively expensive or life endangering. At the same time, the postwar economic boom brought millions of families into the middle class, along with intense social pressures to conform to a model of family perfection. While young men who engaged in sex often saw their reputations enhanced, single women who became pregnancy were shunned by family and friends, evicted from […]

Categories: 2008 Reads, Adoption, Nonfiction, North America, United States • Tags: Ann Fessler