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Apr 25, 2011

Reese rated it:

My interest in the "women who surrendered children for adoption in the decades before Roe v. Wade" meant that Ann Fessler probably could not have produced a work on this subject that I would have begun and abandoned. Nevertheless, about one-third of the way through THE GIRLS WHO WENT AWAY, I realized that this is a book that I would have to read in "chunklets." Although Fessler does present stats, history, and commentary to capture "the big picture," the book is dom More...

9 comments like (19 people liked it)

Oct 09, 2008

Eris_discordia rated it:

The stories contained in this book are painful to read. They will make you angry. They will make you cry. But they are necessary.

For too long we as a culture have believed that the children in the adoption system have been thrown away by uncaring mothers. The truth is that many of these children were stolen. Few women even had any choice in the matter--their parents decided that the babies would be given up, the doctors and nurses shamed them, and social workers lied to them and omi More...

0 comments like (14 people liked it)

May 24, 2008

Yosafbridg rated it:

On December 26 of last year Diane Rehm had Ann Fessler on her show to talk about the book The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades before Roe v. Wade, she also talked to some of the women featured in the book. I was listening to the show a while ago (yes i know, more than a little late there~but i have many podcasts stacked up on my computer and i just listen to them whenever). Actually i think it was the second time i listened to More...

5 comments like (3 people liked it)

Oct 14, 2007

Ellen rated it:

This was pretty interesting and eye-opening. Not to be insensitive, but to the casual reader (me), it seems to drag a bit and repeat the same concepts over and over. I get it, already. I found myself skipping over quite a few parts.

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 13, 2008

Christina rated it:

On a complete accident I managed to stumble across The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade on GoodReads while typing in another title and I have found a new love, which is surprising because I rarely, if ever, read non-fiction works.

I am surprised that his book did not get more press coverage when it was published because (a) it discusses something that most people tried to hush up and (b) it calls for More...

1 comment like (5 people liked it)

Sep 03, 2008

Trena rated it:

This book was written to expose secrets kept when there was no option for a pregnant teenager but to have the baby. It focused on girls of middle and upper classes, mostly white, who were sent to maternity homes before they began to show, and came home after the baby was born.

It was a bit uncomfortable to read, because almost all of the women had not wanted to give up their babies, and adoption was painted in an extremely negative light as being unfair to birth mothers (the author More...

1 comment like (5 people liked it)

May 09, 2008

Kendra rated it:

Fessler, an adoptee, began a project in which she interviewed women who placed children for adoption between the end of World War II and the Roe v. Wade decision. The transcribed stories are heartbreaking, and it's horrifying to see how these women were treated by their families, by society, by medical staff, and by the social workers at the maternity homes where many of them spent their pregnancies. It's an eye-opening read and is food for thought regarding what has and hasn't changed since t More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

May 16, 2008

Ginny rated it:

A fascinating and heartbreaking study of the experiences of girls who had out-of-wedlock babies in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s. It is told mostly through personal narratives with some additional text about demographics and mores of the middle 20th century. According to the author, one and one half million babies were given up for adoption in the years between 1945 and 1973. Of the women who contributed to this book, nearly all of them were forced to surrender their babies for adoption, (often after More...

4 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 16, 2008

Gwen rated it:

I LOVED this book. Fessler interviews women who "went away" between the 1940s and 1972--that is, women who got pregnant out of wedlock and were sent away to unwed mother homes and then gave their children up for adoption. From these interviews it becomes clear that many of these women did not willingly give up their babies for adoption. They were pressured, or even forced, to give them up--by parents, social workers, nurses, and religious leaders. Those who did give them up "volun More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Mar 24, 2009

Kristi rated it:

I'm embarrassed to say that prior to reading this book it never even occurred to me that this heavily marginalized group even existed. This book is a great example of breaking the silence on yet another issue that has been kept secret for way too long.

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Jan 20, 2012

Ellyn rated it:

This book tells the stories of the many young, unmarried women, mostly white and middle class, who experienced unplanned pregnancies in their teens and twenties in the years following World War II and were forced to give their babies up for adoption in the face of tremendous family and community pressure. It was a different time, when single motherhood was rare, sex education scarce, and birth control largely unavailable, and the book does a good job of making that context clear. Many young wo More...

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Oct 24, 2011

Katie rated it:

Since I'm not a mom, my opinion of this book can't be wholly trusted, but nonetheless, here it is:

Fessler compiled personal accounts from women who got pregnant out of wedlock in the 50s and 60s and had their children taken from them under the guise of "voluntary adoption." Every single one of these accounts was unjust and upsetting: Girls were ostracized by their own families, they were made to feel unworthy of motherhood, they weren't informed of their legal rights and - More...

1 comment like

Aug 20, 2011

Leonora of rated it:

This was a fascinating book that has changed my view of adoption. I wish I could give it 3.5 stars.

It was a good read. The bulk of the book is taken up with personal stories which are often similar and yet are individually compelling. The stories veer from the past to present tense but I think this was to preserve the feeling of immediacy you get when listening to a story in person.

I was pretty shocked by the, mostly emotional, brutality the girls were put through. It c More...

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May 09, 2011

Julie rated it:

Ann Fessler interviewed hundreds of women who became pregnant as unmarried teenage girls (some in their early twenties) who were sent to maternity homes to hide their pregnancies, then forced to give their babies up for adoption. I don't know what the sample is, but for the women Fessler interviewed years later, the pain and grief never went away. Adults told them that they would forget all about their babies, go right back to leading their normal teenage lives, and never remember these babies More...

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Feb 01, 2011

Sue rated it:

If you are under 40, you will read this book from a viewpoint that is as distant as mine is when I read first person accounts of the Civil War. But if you are over 40, the stories of the women in this book will ring terrifyingly close to home as you remember the days of your own youth, when to be pregnant and unmarried was to be completely and totally ostracized from middle class society -- expelled from school, rejected by friends (and often family), and barred from any participation in the com More...

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Jun 14, 2010

Ann rated it:

Oh my! When I had an abortion at 19, a friend who was pregnant at the same time surrendered her child for adoption. Thirty years later I got a letter from her telling me of her anguish and agony looking for her daughter, whom she finally found, after 15 years of searching, in The Netherlands. The daughter didn't want to have a relationship with her, though you never know what might happen some day.

This book told dozens of stories of ruined lives, untold anguish, unfathomable and u More...

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Apr 28, 2010

Katie rated it:

Fessler interviewed hundreds of mothers who were forced to give up their children during the 1940s through 1970s. During this time, sex education did not exist, nor did any real access to birth control. When women became pregnant outside of marriage, families went bat-shit crazy and either sent their girls to hide away in prison-like homes or kept them trapped in secret in their own homes. They were given no choice but to relinquish their children upon birth into closed adoptions, often throug More...

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Jan 27, 2010

Judith rated it:

this is one of the most moving, and distrubing, colelcted oral histories I have read in quite a while. Ann Fessler, an adoptee whose adoptive mther was also adopted, records the tales and the traumas of a wide and varied pool of women who all had one large and usually hirrible experience in common : they were "sent away" Vo bear and relinguish their out-of-wedlock babies when they were young women. I guarantee that no thinking person will ever think lightly about adoption again after More...

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Dec 30, 2009

Lisa rated it:

I loved this book. It is a courageous effort by the author to research the experiences of so many U.S. birth mothers in the years following WWII, and share their stories, along with the historical context for the stories. Thus, not only do you hear from many birth mothers about their experience, but the author helps you understand the reasons behind the stories. Why were so many U.S. babies relinquished for adoption in the decades immediately following WWII?

As an adoptive mom, it More...

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Oct 06, 2008

Lindsay rated it:

This book is a collection of eighteen women's recollections of giving up babies they had as teenagers in the 1950s and '60s, always without any consideration of whether they might want to keep the babies. These stories are bookended by the author's own saga of tracking down her biological mother and hearing HER story of giving up her child!

A powerful, eye-opening book; before reading this, I had no idea that women ever were forced to give up babies, let alone in such large numbers.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 11, 2011

Jen rated it:

This book was incredibly interesting and absolutely heartbreaking. However, I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 for two reasons.

The first is that this book didn't have enough statistics and backgrounds information regarding the time period. I acknowledge that may not be the kind of book Fessler was trying to write however, each section of the book begins with a bit of an introduction, some broad background offering stats and objective insight into 1950 and 60s America as it relates to ado More...

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Jul 19, 2007

Aspidistra rated it:

There is so much in this book that helps me to put together for myself a better understanding of the high cost we as a society made sexually active women pay in the 1950s through 1970s. I was only dimly aware of these things during the time because I was a child and, of course, such things were not discussed with children. This is a powerful book that goes only a small way towards righting a horrible wrong.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 19, 2011

Paula rated it:

I knew, as soon as I was in any position to think about it, that I could never give up a child of mine for adoption, even if I were in no condition to raise it. I knew it would literally make me crazy to think that a child of mine was somewhere in the world, but that I wouldn't know where, and couldn't help him/her. To me, this actually seemed selfish of me, and I've always thought that the young women who opted for the adoption "solution" to their dilemma were better people tha More...

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Oct 20, 2009

Wendy rated it:

I am having a hard time putting this book down and would highly recommend it, although I'm not sure if I'm biased as an adoptee myself. For me, this story is capitvating because it raises a whole host of questions regarding my "beginning", leaves me to question how well the stories of these women fit into the image and circumstances of my own birthmother who gave birth in 1975. I like to think I would find it a just as fascinating if I weren't adopted; some of these women's stories ar More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 01, 2010

Mary rated it:

Extensive interviews with several woman who "gave up" (under much duress from their families and societal pressure) their babies as young unwed teens in the 50's - early 70's which document the long-lasting trauma these women suffered. The circumstances of the pregnancies and adoptions are pretty sad (horror of discovering the pregnancy, getting dumped by their boy friends, shunned by friends and family as "loose women", many basically abandoned at homes for unwed mothers wh More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 13, 2009

Jen rated it:

This book was amazing, eye-opening, and saddening all at the same time. I can't imagine the anguish these young women must have felt, not only knowing VERY LITTLE about how pregnancy happened, but then to go through it without good medical care, shunned by their families, hidden like shameful secrets, then laboring alone and having their babies basically taken away from them and having to live with the loss without any emotional support. It's barbaric, the way these social workers purported to " More...

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Oct 29, 2009

Lorrie rated it:

Oral histories from young, unmarried women who went to maternity homes to have their babies and give them up for adoption in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. The author tells about her own story as an adoptee seeking to connect with her birth mother and also provides historical and social context for the book. Though a lot of the themes were repeated, I found this book really engrossing. It is sort of unbelievable what some of these women went through -- most of them were completely uneducated about sex, More...

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Feb 05, 2009

Bookmarks Magazine added it

Perhaps it's no surprise that this story has gone untold for so long, considering the personal nature of the subject and the moral dilemma heaped upon the young women who gave their babies up for adoption. What is astonishing is that Fessler, a photographer and video installation artist writing her debut book, manages to tell this compelling story with a perfectly honed sense of restraint and respect. She handles the large volume of source material nimbly, letting each individual story breathe.

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Jun 05, 2010

Lisa rated it:

In "The Girls Who Went Away," Anne Fessler provides historical data as she sensitively interviews women who had given up their babies for adoption. Many of the women poignantly tell their own stories. What shocked me about the book was that I had lived through this era and was in high school in the mid sixties yet it was hard at first to recall any of this. I had to really jolt my brain to get back to the bad old days of sexual hypocracy and double standards. I couldn't remember anyone More...

3 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 30, 2010

Laurie (Kwiltreader) rated it:

This is a very thought provoking book about unwed mothers and adoption in the 50's and 60's...yes, those "Happy Days" with "Father Knows Best" when non marital pregnancy was hidden away. I remember girls in school who went "away" to stay with an aunt somewhere in another state. Many whispers but no one ever really talked about it.
One of the many things that I learned, sadly, from this book was that "In the early 1900s, most social workders argued that More...

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