The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction

by Linda Gordon

In 1904, New York nuns brought forty Irish orphans to a remote Arizona mining camp, to be placed with Catholic families. The Catholic families were Mexican, as was the majority of the population. Soon the town's Anglos, furious at this "interracial" transgression, formed a vigilante squad that kidnapped the children and nearly lynched the nuns and the local priest. The Catholic Church sued to get its wards back, but all the courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, ruled in favor of the vigilantes.

The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction tells this disturbing and dramatic tale to illuminate the creation of racial boundaries along the Mexican border. Clifton/Morenci, Arizona, was a "wild West" boomtown, where the mines and smelters pulled in thousands of Mexican immigrant workers. Racial walls hardened as the mines became big business and whiteness became a marker of superiority. These already volatile race and class relations produced passions that erupted in the "orphan incident." To the Anglos of Clifton/Morenci, placing a white child with a Mexican family was tantamount to child abuse, and they saw their kidnapping as a rescue.

Women initiated both sides of this confrontation. Mexican women agreed to take in these orphans, both serving their church and asserting a maternal prerogative; Anglo women believed they had to "save" the orphans, and they organized a vigilante squad to do it. In retelling this nearly forgotten piece of American history, Linda Gordon brilliantly recreates and dissects the tangled intersection of family and racial values, in a gripping story that resonates with today's conflicts over the "best interests of the child."

Genres: History, Nonfiction, American History, Grad School, School, Adoption, Race

432 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

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

Reviews

[Becky · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anyone familiar with children's books has probably read one of the many stories of orphans who were sent west by train from east coast orphanages to adoptive families. Because of who recommended this book, I assumed, without reading anything about the book, that this was another of those books. I was, therefore, surprised to find that the book was historical in nature, totally meant for adults, and actually classified in the Dewey Decimal Classification system at 308.5, Ethnic and National Groups. And this is where it belongs. The book analyzes the racial nomenclature, classes, and relationships of the largely Anglo and Mexican townspeople of two Arizona copper mining towns in the early 1900's and the events surrounding the arrival of a train of orphans who were to be adopted by Catholic families, all of whom happened to be Mexican. Although the book uses the orphans' arrival as a jumping-off point, it is actually a study of what happened among the various racial groups when the children arrived. It wasn't good, and it would take far longer than I am willing to spend to try to explain it. That's what the book is for. I found that reading the book gave me more insight into Mexican-American culture than I had gained in 22 years of teaching in schools whose students were primarily minority (in Texas, that used to mean Mexican, though in the last 10-15 years, the minority population has come to include more and more students from Central and South America), and it gave me a much clearer understanding into the politics of border security and illegal immigration in Arizona. The book was well-written by a Harvard prof and filled with footnotes. I'd recommend that anyone with even a remote interest in the politics of immigration read the book. Although focused on one location and one event at one time, it gave me insights that could be broadly applied to the current attitudes about "others" in the U.S. Read it.

[Patricia · Rating 1 out of 5]

A dry pedantic recitation in paragraph form of every minute detail unearthed in research about two small copper mining towns in Arizona in the early 1900s. Academic historians may enjoy this book, but I pity the students who find this title on their “Required Reading” list.

The book has been misleadingly titled. Most of the book concerns the socio-economic-political-racial environments of the towns with relatively few pages devoted to the orphans.

Food to eat while reading: You will be drowning in details, so look for something light and airy to snack on.

[Kathleen (itpdx) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fascinating piece of history. In 1904 a young Catholic priest from France serving a parish in a copper mining camp in the mountains of Arizona helped the New York Foundling Hospital arrange for placements of Irish American orphans in his parish. His parish was almost exclusively Mexican. When the orphans arrived, the local Anglos decided that the white orphans should not be laced with Mexican families and kidnapped those who were already with their new families.
Gordon weaves the story of the orphans with details about copper mining, racism, vigilantism, orphanage management, company towns and many other illuminating pieces of information.
One thing I would change is putting the information about the 1903 strike that happened a little over a year before the orphans arrival earlier in the book. It was a pivotal incident that involved some of the same people. It would have made more sense to me t have had this information earlier in the book.

[Glen · Rating 3 out of 5]

After they are orphaned a Mexican family takes in some Anglo children. This sends the community into an uproar, and before too long, a posse comes and takes the children away.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

[Sally Sugarman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an account of the attempt of the Catholic Foundling Home in New York City to place some Irish orphans with Mexican parents in a mining community in Arizona. However, it is much more than that. It is a history of the mining town and the racism of whites towards Mexicans. There are strains of religion in this book as well since the criteria for the sisters of the order were good catholic homes. However, the Anglos saw the children as white. In New York City the children were considered non-white because they were Irish. They got white on the train to Arizona. There is an extended discussion of vigilantism that is quite enlightening. The women in the town prevailed upon the men to form a posse and to kidnap the children from the Mexican homes. This book also deals with the issue of gender and how women exercised their limited powers. This is a fine grained analysis of a specific incident that tells much about the attitudes in the United States, particularly out west about race, but also about class and gender. What makes a good home for these children? The argument justifying the men’s actions was the best interests of the child. However, who decides that? The people with the power of course. The southwest has not really shaken off its racist attitudes towards Mexican Americans. The complexity of the situation is examined in detail. The chapters are intercut with descriptions of the event by day. The book is almost like a novel with its vivid evocation of the situation. At the end Gordon says that whether history has a happy ending is dependent upon when you stop telling the story. In some ways the children as well as the Mexicans get lost in this story. The few incidents that Gordon has about the subsequent experiences of the children are not very encouraging. However, she is quick to point out that they may not be representative and that they only illustrate that what makes good parenting is difficult to determine. Her account of the trial and of the newspaper coverage of the event makes one disbelieve in law and in reporting. This is a disturbing picture of our heritage

[Marie Carmean · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have some very conflicting views about this book. Yes, the author researched her subject thoroughly, but there were aspects of this situation that I felt were presented in the wrong light. It is a socio-economic-gender-racial study of the period around the turn of the twentieth century, and specifically dealing with two Arizona mining towns. Gordon seemed to dig so deep and so far afield of the actual event to prove her points, that I found it irritating. I expected a story that was complex but very "human interest" in scope. What a found was a judgment of the people who were involved, and judgment of various acts of the time. Orphan trains in themselves are complex issues. It is not a practice that we in our modern age would be part of, and I see a lot of negatives. But, with adoption less regulated and controlled as it is now, this seemed at the time like a viable alternative. Was there some good? Yes, of course. But in this case, the children, Irish Catholic children, are being delivered to mining towns to be fostered by Mexican Catholic parents. Was the Catholic-run Foundling hospital viewing Catholicism as it's sole consideration, ignoring the bigotry against Mexicans, the problems with language barriers, and cultural differences....yes! Should they have done their homework before sending the children hundreds of miles away to complete strangers. Oh yes! Were the Anglo families who became incensed by the children's arrival to be placed in the Mexican homes, totally wrong for the way they handled the situation? Yes, again! But, to turn this story into a textbook of the failings of the human societal condition in 1904, supported by studies and data about every negative aspect of the American experiment, is NOT the way this story should have been approached.

[Linconter · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting subject but terribly written. I think it must have been the author's thesis for a degree somewhere. More than 300 pages of substantiation that white folk discriminate with all their might against nonwhite folk -- this cannot be a surprise to ANYone in this country! It doesn't matter what the date is, what the town is, or what the state is: white folk are just not going to let the rights of anyone of a different color or persuasion be easily exercised. The fact that minority (i.e., IRISH Catholic) white orphans were in the middle of a tug-of-war (truthfully, the Mexicans weren't tugging very hard. They didn't dare.) between richer white folk and their darker-skinned, "lower class" neighbors is the sad piece. And I would have loved to have known what happened to all those children in the end. Did they grow up to be axe murderers because they had severe bonding issues? Did any of them grow up to be well-adjusted but non-discriminating adults, or did the example they were given as infants (and presumably through the rest of their lives in Arizona) warp their adult lives, too?

[shatine]

This looks at a single event -- a group of Irish children stolen by white vigilantes from their brand new ethnically Mexican adoptive parents in Clifton and Morenci, Arizona -- in its context. Less focus on what happened during and after, more on how and why events unfolded that way in that specific time and place. (There's very little about what happened afterward for the families involved, though idk if there was any available information anyway.)

Gordon's looking at local racism almost the way you might write about a particular town's culinary history: developed uniquely by local individuals, corporations, and events, with lots in common with its immediate neighbors and less with its distant ones. At a few points I thought she may have gone too hard on emphasizing differences from place to place (possibly meaning to kind of jostle the expectations of people reading the book?), but overall, it's a very grounded way to look at something systemic.

The book is (unsurprisingly) depressing as shit. Several parts made my stomach turn.

[Nicole]

This was the book that probably drew the most criticism from the grad students in HST 301, given that Gordon offers some conjectures about the thoughts and feelings of some of her subjects, but it's not obvious that she really has the evidence to back that up. The class was divided fairly evenly among those who liked the structure of the book, those who liked the story but not the contextual chapters, and those who liked the contextual chapters but thought the story was irrelevant. Definitely a good generator of discussion.

[Judi · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book hooked me from the beginning but then just simply lost me. The author is a good writer but the information written about had little to do with the abduction or the orphans; it was more statistics about races and race relations; the diffferences economically between hispanics and whites; the history of vigilantism....etc. The author fails to tie all of this into the subject of the book. I waited for details of the trial(s) or of the children and what happened to them after taken and placed in the white families and was disappointed, which was the "theme" throughout the book.

[Dell Taylor · Rating 2 out of 5]

My actual rating: 2.75
This was a difficult book. The author has done so much research and has acquired a wealth of information, but its presentation was not as interesting as it could be. The writing was just too dense. I ended up skimming the historical chapters and reading the chapters about the actual events -- but, the orphans were actually secondary. A disappointment.

[Zoe Borovsky]

well-researched -- and I liked the organizational strategy. Take a historical event and examine it from several perspectives. The nuns, the catholic Mexican families and the priest, the protestant"white" families. It shows the complexities of reexamining/interpreting the intersections of race and culture to rewrite history. Compelling and fascinating.

[S.J. · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book dealing with issues related to Catholicism and race, through the lens of the kidnapping by Anglo families of New York Irish-American orphans placed with Mexican families in Arizona.

[Martha Fiorentini · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting narrative about a little known chapter in the Orphan Train movement around the turn of the last century.

I liked the chapters regarding the actual incident but got bogged down in the alternate chapters regarding the history of unionizing in that area, sociological and cultural aspects of all involved.

It was informative.

[Gretchen · Rating 3 out of 5]

She found an incredible story and did meticulous research, as one would expect of Linda Gordon. This book alone could have set up all the major themes of my U.S. History course first quarter (1877-1919). Unfortunately, the writing is competent but dull, the story belabored to the point of exhaustion, and I couldn't blame the students for wearying of the book when I found it tedious myself.

[Bryan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Must academic monographs be bone-achingly boring? Really? Must they?

[Danielle Russell · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book provides historical context for understanding the shifting roles and definitions of race in the United States during an early period of colonial western expansion. The fight that occurred over these "white" children and where and with whom they would live, puts the intersections of religion, patriarchy, and white supremacy into stark relief. This event demonstrates and provides an example of how white supremacy grew to become insidious within U.S.-based, white christian formations - with the Church ultimately deciding, as demonstrated by this historical event, to adhere more closely to white supremacist imperatives of familial structure over their own patriarchal, religious ideologies in regards to how families should be synthesized.
Readers are reminded that this is the history which has constructed and continues to inform our present reality and structures that are purported to support children and youth who do not have parents to care for them, or who have had their families disrupted by the state. The white supremacist notions that were present in this particular event have not disappeared from our society, and clearly there is much work to do to dismantle this violent system.

[Alisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a scholarly read - incredibly thoroughly researched and documented - and it does not ever attempt to read like anything else. This episode in Arizona history built upon the groundwork for the economic, political and racial views that founded the state, established it's elite classes, defined both the citizens and the non-citizens by color, religion and status, empowered women, particularly Anglo women, and drove the mining companies in the mountains in the Clifton-Morenci areas to achieve great wealth. Should we be embarrassed and feel guilty, especially through the current perspectives? Definitely. Are those same powers still exerting those impacts? Pretty much. This book will tell you about the expedition that led a Catholic agency in NYC to ship 40 Irish orphans to this small slice of AZ to be adopted by Mexican families in that area.

[Valerie Nelson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Yes, at some point you'll learn about this terrible part of our history, white people "rescuing" white orphaned children from a fate worse than death: being raised by a Mexican family. But to get there you have to sift through a history of racism, religious bigotry, unions, gender politics, classism....I get that there are probably very few documents besides court documents and no family stories about this era, but because of that calling the book "Orphan Abduction" is very misleading. You want details about two small early 1900s copper mining towns? You want details about all of the above? You'll get it. But covering the actual abduction could have been covered in a short article. If the title had been "Gender Politics and Racism Related to the 1903 Arizona Orphan Adoption" I might have given it more stars.

[Robin · Rating 3 out of 5]

So good and then somewhat boring. I was fascinated with the Arizona history. Raciscm was obvious but I have to admit I have mixed feelings about the whole incident especially for that day and age. I feel so bad for the Mexican women especially since they were planning and getting excited for children, how they too must have been shocked when only white children came on the train. Such poor organization and lack of communication as to have something that big go wrong. I found the whole story bizarre and interesting. The whole delving into the mining background, I can see the necessity but it wasn't all that interesting to me.

[Amy · Rating 1 out of 5]

The story of the orphans brought to Arizona and the resulting abduction by the members of the towns that disagreed with their placement is an eye-opening piece of history. But this is not the book to read about that tale. Very little between the covers concerns that event.
Most of this book is repeated mind-numbing rehashing of the the socio-economic-political-racial environment of those Western towns... the same sentences and points made in multiple chapters. I found myself skipping chapters trying to find information about the orphans and eventually gave up and read about it online.
This is obviously a well researched and documented book, but the title is misleading.

[Emily · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting subject written in way too many pages. There’s a lot of discussion about side topics that while relevant to the conversation, go on for way too long. Some of the topics covered I’d argue don’t matter at all. There are whole sections talking about mining, the type of town, the history of vigilante groups in America. And while these topics have some significance to the overall narrative, they don’t need to be 20-40 pages each, it gets to the point where it feels like there was a page count the author was trying to reach. The organization of this book is also a bit confusing and irritating. I think this could have been half the length and would’ve been twice as impactful.

[Don · Rating 2 out of 5]

I heard this book to prepare for a lecture that I will be giving later this year. The book not only chronicles the events of the 1904 orphan incident in the Clifton,Arizona it also discusses in great depth any possible topic that might have some bearing on the events leading up to and following the abduction/kidnapping of the Irish orphans by the Anglo/white residents of the area. This book was too detailed for my needs. Consider the fact that there were over 80 pages of notes. This is a scholarly book written by a college professor of history. Reader beware!

[Casandra · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was assigned to read this book for my American West History class. As I read the book I thought it was very interesting, and I learned about events that I didn't know about before. This book was really informative and really opened my eyes about events that had happened in Arizona in the early 20th century.

[Jack Dixon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazingly smart and in-depth analysis that must be read!

Remarkable research goes into this detailed account of small town life, where orphan children, race, and religion diverge in a time of white supremacy. The details of the events are fascinating and overwhelming. Very good work here.

[Judine Brey · Rating 3 out of 5]

While this book is an interesting account of al ittle know historical event, I think it would have been more effective told in a different format - either from two perspectives (Arizona and New York) or chronological.

[Amber · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is absolutely phenomenal. Gordon is able to take a single event and create an holistic view of the entire time period.

This is going to be a tough book to beat, it is the best book I have read in awhile. Wow!

[Rachel Longstaff · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book brings out shocking race prejudice of that place and time. A great deal of research went into the story, which is admirable, but make it hard to read through to the end.

[Penny Fleckenstein · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sad & so unjust & how we treat children.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

You have to read this to understand how truly appalling this situation was. Rich, white racism at it's worst.