A powerful and groundbreaking revelation of the secret history of the 1.5 million women who surrendered children for adoption in the several decades before Roe v. Wade In this deeply moving work, Ann Fessler brings to light the lives of hundreds of thousands of young single American women forced to give up their newborn children in the years following World War II and before Roe v. Today, when the future of the Roe decision and women's reproductive rights stand squarely at the front of a divisive national debate, Fessler brings to the fore a long-overlooked history of single women in the fifties, sixties, and early seventies. summarized from Amazon.com
This book brings to light the lives of 1.5 million single American women in the years following World War II who, under enormous social and family pressure, were coerced to give up their newborn children. It tells not of wild and carefree sexual liberation, but rather of a devastating double standard that has had punishing long-term effects on these women and on the children they gave up. Single pregnant women were shunned by family and friends, evicted from schools, sent away to maternity homes to have their children alone, and often treated with cold contempt by doctors, nurses, and clergy. The majority of the women interviewed by Fessler, herself an adoptee, have never spoken of their experiences, and most have been haunted by grief and shame their entire adult lives.–From publisher description.
This is the April 2008 upgrade of Cook Memorial Library’s new website, in development by Scriblio. It’s a brand new model for libraries, constructed to be interactive throughout, and to give website users the same opportunity for give-and-take that’s one of the joys of visiting our physical library on Tamworth’s Main Street.
If this is your first visit to the new site, please go to the HELP link. It will show you how to navigate the website. Please feel free to comment.
Our automation system, INFOCENTRE, can be accessed directly for RESERVES & RENEWS, and creating reading lists.
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