Our friend Ellen Herman sent me the following notice today about her new book: Kinship by Design: a history of adoption in the modern United States.

Woo woo! I know what I’m ordering! I don’t read a lot of adoption books, but this is one I will.

Ellen is the creator of the Adoption History Project at the University of Oregon, a wonderful source of of information on our favorite love-to-hate topic. I am especially interested in her work on adoption in therapeutic culture.

HINT: the book is on sale at Amazon right now!

Ellen Herman
Kinship by Design
A History of Adoption in the Modern United States
368 pages, 15 halftones 6 x 9 © 2008
Cloth $70.00
ISBN: 9780226327594 Published December 2008
Paper $25.00
ISBN: 9780226327600 Published December 2008

* Synopsis
* Table of Contents
* Bio

What constitutes a family? Tracing the dramatic evolution of Americans’ answer to this question over the past century, Kinship by Design provides the fullest account to date of modern adoption’s history.

Beginning in the early 1900s, when children were still transferred between households by a variety of unregulated private
arrangements, Ellen Herman details efforts by the U.S. Children’s Bureau and the Child Welfare League of America to establish adoption standards in law and practice. She goes on to trace Americans’ shifting ideas about matching children with physically or intellectually similar parents, revealing how research in developmental science and technology shaped adoption as it navigated the nature-nurture debate.

Concluding with an insightful analysis of the revolution that ushered in special needs, transracial, and international adoptions, Kinship by Design ultimately situates the practice as both a different way to make a family and a universal story about love, loss, identity, and belonging. In doing so, this volume provides a new vantage point from which to view twentieth-century America, revealing as much about social welfare, statecraft, and science as it does about childhood, family, and private life.

Subjects

* Culture Studies
* History: American History
* History of Science
* Psychology: Social Psychology
* Social Work
* Sociology: Sociology–Marriage and Family

You may purchase this title at these fine bookstores. Outside the USA, consult our international information page.

Questions about this title? email [email protected].

Ellen Herman

Kinship by Design

A History of Adoption in the Modern United States

368 pages, 15 halftones 6 x 9 © 2008

Cloth $70.00

ISBN: 9780226327594 Published December 2008

Paper $25.00

ISBN: 9780226327600 Published December 2008

What constitutes a family? Tracing the dramatic evolution of Americans’ answer to this question over the past century, Kinship by Design provides the fullest account to date of modern adoption’s history.
Beginning in the early 1900s, when children were still transferred between households by a variety of unregulated private arrangements, Ellen Herman details efforts by the U.S. Children’s Bureau and the Child Welfare League of America to establish adoption standards in law and practice. She goes on to trace Americans’ shifting ideas about matching children with physically or intellectually similar parents, revealing how research in developmental science and technology shaped adoption as it navigated the nature-nurture debate.
Concluding with an insightful analysis of the revolution that ushered in special needs, transracial, and international adoptions, Kinship by Design ultimately situates the practice as both a different way to make a family and a universal story about love, loss, identity, and belonging. In doing so, this volume provides a new vantage point from which to view twentieth-century America, revealing as much about social welfare, statecraft, and science as it does about childhood, family, and private life.