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Little Strangers: Portrayals of Adoption and Foster Care in America, 1850-1929
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Little Strangers: Portrayals of Adoption and Foster Care in America, 1850-1929 Hardback - 2003

by Claudia Nelson

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Reader reviews for Little Strangers: Portrayals of Adoption and Foster Care in America, 1850-1929

From the publisher

When Massachusetts passed America's first comprehensive adoption law in 1851, the usual motive for taking in an unrelated child was presumed to be the need for cheap labor. But by 1929--the first year that every state had an adoption law--the adoptee's main function was seen as emotional. Little Strangers examines the representations of adoption and foster care produced over the intervening years. Claudia Nelson argues that adoption texts reflect changing attitudes toward many important social issues, including immigration and poverty, heredity and environment, individuality and citizenship, gender, and the family. She examines orphan fiction for children, magazine stories and articles, legal writings, social work conference proceedings, and discussions of heredity and child psychology. Nelson's ambitious scope provides for an analysis of the extent to which specialist and mainstream adoption discourse overlapped, as well as the ways in which adoption and foster care had captivated the public imagination.

First line

The 1885 poem "Little Orphant Annie," by Hoosier versifier James Whitcomb Riley, profiles a girl "bound out" to earn her own way in the world.

Details

  • Title Little Strangers: Portrayals of Adoption and Foster Care in America, 1850-1929
  • Author Claudia Nelson
  • Binding Hardback
  • Edition First Edition
  • Pages 224
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Indiana University Press, US
  • Publication date April 2003
  • ISBN 9780253342249 / 0253342244
  • Weight 1.1 lbs (0.50 kg)
  • Dimensions 9.68 x 6.44 x 0.89 in (24.59 x 16.36 x 2.26 cm)
  • Category Family / Parenting / Childbirth
  • Library of Congress subjects Adoption - United States - History, Orphans - United States - History
  • Library of Congress Catalogue Number 2002014747
  • Dewey Decimal Code 362.734

About the author

Claudia Nelson is Associate Professor of English at Texas A & M University. She is the author of Invisible Men: Fatherhood in Victorian Periodicals, 1850-1910 (1995) and Boys Will Be Girls: The Feminine Ethic and British Children's Fiction, 1857-1917 (1991). Other publications include two edited books, as well as numerous articles and chapters in edited collections.

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Little Strangers : Portrayals of Adoption and Foster Care in America, 1850-1929
Stock photo: cover may vary

Little Strangers : Portrayals of Adoption and Foster Care in America, 1850-1929

by Nelson, Claudia

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Used
ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
9780253342249 / 0253342244
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Description:
Wiley & Sons, Limited, John. Used - Good. Former library copy. Pages intact with minimal writing/highlighting. The binding may be loose and creased. Dust jackets/supplements are not included. Includes library markings. Stock photo provided. Product includes identifying sticker. Better World Books: Buy Books. Do Good.
Add to wish list
Item price
A$41.88
Free Delivery to USA