A staff member will lead a book discussion at the Des Plaines History Center on American Baby: a mother, a child, and the shadow history of adoption by Gabrielle Glaser. Books are available at the 3rd floor info desk in the public library approximately 60 days in advance.

American Baby: a mother, a child, and the shadow history of adoption by Gabrielle Glaser

As Baby Boomers became teenagers in 1960s America, women were encouraged to stay home and raise large families, but sex and childbirth were taboo subjects. Premarital sex was common, but birth control was hard to get and abortion was illegal. In 1961, sixteen-year-old Margaret Erle fell in love and became pregnant. Her enraged family sent her to a maternity home, and after she gave birth, she wasn't even allowed her to hold her own son. Social workers threatened her with jail until she signed away her parental rights. Her son vanished, his whereabouts and new identity known only to an adoption agency that would never share the slightest detail about his fate. Claiming to be acting in the best interests of all, the adoption business was founded on secrecy and lies. American Baby lays out how a lucrative and exploitative industry removed children from their birth mothers and placed them with hopeful families, fabricating stories about infants' origins and destinations, then closing the door firmly between the parties forever."