The Traffic in Babies: Cross-Border Adoption and Baby-Selling between the United States and Canada, 1930-1972

Between 1930 and the mid-1970s, several thousand Canadian-born children were adopted by families in the United States. At times, adopting across the border was a strategy used to deliberately avoid professional oversight and take advantage of varying levels of regulation across states and provinces. The Traffic in Babies traces the efforts of Canadian and American child welfare leaders—with intermittent support from immigration officials, politicians, police, and criminal prosecutors—to build bridges between disconnected jurisdictions and control the flow of babies across the Canada-U.S. border.

Karen A. Balcom details the dramatic and sometimes tragic history of cross-border adoptions—from the Ideal Maternity Home case and the Alberta Babies-for-Export scandal to trans-racial adoptions of Aboriginal children. Exploring how and why babies were moved across borders, The Traffic in Babies is a fascinating look at how social workers and other policy makers tried to find the birth mothers, adopted children, and adoptive parents who disappeared into the spaces between child welfare and immigration laws in Canada and the United States.

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The Traffic in Babies: Cross-Border Adoption and Baby-Selling between the United States and Canada, 1930-1972

Between 1930 and the mid-1970s, several thousand Canadian-born children were adopted by families in the United States. At times, adopting across the border was a strategy used to deliberately avoid professional oversight and take advantage of varying levels of regulation across states and provinces. The Traffic in Babies traces the efforts of Canadian and American child welfare leaders—with intermittent support from immigration officials, politicians, police, and criminal prosecutors—to build bridges between disconnected jurisdictions and control the flow of babies across the Canada-U.S. border.

Karen A. Balcom details the dramatic and sometimes tragic history of cross-border adoptions—from the Ideal Maternity Home case and the Alberta Babies-for-Export scandal to trans-racial adoptions of Aboriginal children. Exploring how and why babies were moved across borders, The Traffic in Babies is a fascinating look at how social workers and other policy makers tried to find the birth mothers, adopted children, and adoptive parents who disappeared into the spaces between child welfare and immigration laws in Canada and the United States.

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The Traffic in Babies: Cross-Border Adoption and Baby-Selling between the United States and Canada, 1930-1972

The Traffic in Babies: Cross-Border Adoption and Baby-Selling between the United States and Canada, 1930-1972

by Karen Balcom
The Traffic in Babies: Cross-Border Adoption and Baby-Selling between the United States and Canada, 1930-1972

The Traffic in Babies: Cross-Border Adoption and Baby-Selling between the United States and Canada, 1930-1972

by Karen Balcom

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Overview

Between 1930 and the mid-1970s, several thousand Canadian-born children were adopted by families in the United States. At times, adopting across the border was a strategy used to deliberately avoid professional oversight and take advantage of varying levels of regulation across states and provinces. The Traffic in Babies traces the efforts of Canadian and American child welfare leaders—with intermittent support from immigration officials, politicians, police, and criminal prosecutors—to build bridges between disconnected jurisdictions and control the flow of babies across the Canada-U.S. border.

Karen A. Balcom details the dramatic and sometimes tragic history of cross-border adoptions—from the Ideal Maternity Home case and the Alberta Babies-for-Export scandal to trans-racial adoptions of Aboriginal children. Exploring how and why babies were moved across borders, The Traffic in Babies is a fascinating look at how social workers and other policy makers tried to find the birth mothers, adopted children, and adoptive parents who disappeared into the spaces between child welfare and immigration laws in Canada and the United States.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781442657816
Publisher: University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division
Publication date: 12/15/2011
Series: Studies in Gender and History
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 448
File size: 2 MB

About the Author

Karen A. Balcom is an associate professor in the Department of History at McMaster University.

Table of Contents

Contents


Preface and Acknowledgements


Introduction: Babies Across Borders



  1. Charlotte Whitton and Border-Crossings in the 1930s

  2. Border-Crossing Responses to the Ideal Maternity Home, 1945-1947

  3. The Alberta Babies-for-Export Scandal, 1947-1949

  4. Cross-Border Placements for Catholic Children From Quebec, 1945-1960

  5. Criminal Law and Baby Black Markets, 1954-1964

  6. Controlling Cross Border Adoption, 1950-1972


Conclusion: A "No Man's Land" of Jurisdiction


Bibliography

What People are Saying About This

Ellen Herman

'Through a series of dramatic and compelling narratives, Karen A. Balcom effectively links the story of Canadian children adopted by American parents to central themes in the history of child welfare. Her examination of the practical and constitutional challenges that reformers faced in transnational family-making offers a powerful corrective to triumphal narratives about child-friendly liberal welfare states. The Traffic in Babies is both a very interesting read and a genuinely original contribution to the field of social welfare and adoption history.'

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