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Index
Cover
Dedication
Title Page
Copyright
Contents
Acknowledgements
A Note Regarding Confidentiality
A Note Regarding Terminology
A List of Illustrations
Chapter 1: Introduction and Background
What Exactly is Adoption?
Why Adopt?
A Word about Illegitimacy
How Easy is Adoption to Research?
What Was Happening Before 1850?
Chapter 2: “Our Innocence is all a Sham”: Fallen Women, Displaced Children and Public Sensibilities, 1850-1918
Children in England and Wales in the 1850s
The ‘Displaced Children’ of Victorian England and Wales
The ‘Fallen Woman’
‘A Fate Worse than Death’: Solutions to the Unwanted Pregnancy
Baby Farming
Public Outcry
Adoption and Popular Culture
Institutions
Charitable and Campaigning Organisations
‘Boarding Out’ and Other Solutions
The First World War
Chapter 3: The Push for Legal Adoption, 1918-1926
The Aftermath of World War One
Back to the Home
Adoption Societies
The 1926 Adoption of Children Act
‘Not in Front of the Children’: Adoption and Secrecy
Chapter 4: From Perfect Families to Disrupted Lives: 1926-1945
How Legal Adoption Fared
The Horsbrugh Report
On the Eve of War
World War Two
Mass Observation
Evacuation
Helping the Unmarried Mother
Chapter 5: For the Welfare of All Concerned? 1945-1961
The Brave New World of the Welfare State
The Adoption ‘Boom’
Mother and Baby Homes Post 1945
Guiding the New Parents
Eleanor’s Story
Changes on the Horizon: The 1960s and Beyond
Postscript: Adoption as Quiet Revolution
Chapter 6: Researching Adoption
Taking a Wider View
First of All: Family Sources
Planning Your Research
Resources for Researching Adoption Pre 1926
Resources for Researching Adoption Post 1926
Other Sources
Appendix: Adoption Procedure: Taken from the booklet, A Baby is Adopted, by Margaret Kornitzer and published by The Children’s Society, 1950
Further Reading
Glossary
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