"The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade"
Ann Fessler, 2006

This compilation of personal histories brings forward birth mothers of the 1950s and 1960s -- in other words, victims of the "unwed mother" homes of the time. This isn't something you'd want to stretch out by the pool to read. Each story is achingly sad; most women didn't want to give their babies up but were forced to by an army of doctors, nurses, social workers and angry parents. For many, the pain of that loss has never gone away.

Fessler herself was adopted. When the book opens, she's known her birth mother's name and location for years but has been afraid to go, instead opting to interview dozens of other birthmothers. Finally, near the end of her project, she seeks out her own birthmother, who got pregnant by one boy and engaged to another. Her fiancé offered to help raise the baby, but she felt it wouldn't be fair to him. After hearing so many legacies of loss, Fessler must have seen this as a stinging rejection by her birthmother.

I do wish Fessler have done more research and presented more of a factual history in addition to these women's personal stories. However, she is a photographer first and foremost, and I think it shows in the construction of the book. That's all right. This book has a place, especially because decades later and in a society where this sort of thing would never happen anymore, people still don't talk much about that time, the time before.

Purchase on Amazon here.