The Baby Thief: The Untold Story of Georgia Tann, the Baby Seller Who Corrupted Adoption by Barbara Bisantz Raymond

The Baby Thief: The Untold Story of Georgia Tann, the Baby Seller Who Corrupted Adoption Reviews

• 
  John Mosman

  As a "Georgia Tann" baby, I did found this book interesting and informative. I find myself fortunate in that my adopted parents were wonderful parents throughout my youth. I am about to be 65 years old and have had none or very little interest in finding my birth parents or even knowing anything about them. My adopted parents were my parents, the end. Having a grandson and reading this book has changed my perspective. My daughter and I will proceed in the process in opening my adoption records in the state of Tennessee.
  
  The book is not very well written, but still gets the facts across about the horrible dealings of Georgia Tann, adoption practices and adoption law in the United States. Frankly, I skipped the last section about international adoption practices.
  
  If you want to know about Georgia Tann, this is the book.
  
  Added March 2018:
  My daughter has made contact with my "bio-family." My bio father is still alive in his 90's and did not tell his family about me. My bio mother passed in June of 1988 and her family did not know either. My bio half-sister has been very welcoming and we have a developing virtual relationship at this point.
  
  Update October 2018:
  My sister visited us last week. We had a wonderful time. My daughter drove in and she was able to update her family tree information. My sis is a wonderful woman and I am so glad we are able to connect.
• 
  Misty Marie Harms

  Georgia Tann is known as the "founder" of adoption. More like she was a kidnapper and started the black market for stolen infants/children. Many babies died under her care. Many babies were stolen, while the mothers were told they were stillborn. Georgia was so bold, she would walk into your house and leave with your child. She had officials, judges, and police on her payroll. What is left is a legacy of adults still trying to find who they are and where they came from. This book was really in-depth and flowed easily. It will keep you up at night.
• 
  Kelly

  I am so disappointed in the actual writing of this book. This book covered such an intriguing story and such a critical part in the development of adoption law in America. So much potential that really needed a better editor. Instead of giving a concise reporting of the history and parties involved and the long-reaching effects, you are bounced around from one moment in time, back to another, to an interview snipped with a victim. All very haphazard with no organization or clear time line going on, not to mention, it became hard deal with when a victim introduced in a single sentence at the beginning of the book suddenly shows up chapters later with no further introduction, and you have to go flipping back to find out who is sharing their story.
  
  I had heard of Georgia Tann before and was looking forward to an in-depth perusal of her history and influence on adoption law. Sadly, I was too annoyed with the writing/editing (or lack thereof) to get what I was looking for. Instead I think I will take some of the references sited and use them to explore more on the history of Georgia and the institution of adoption. This book is not your place for a good read.
  
  
• 
  Mari Reive

  This is not a book you read for the author's style of writing. It almost doesn't matter. This is unfortunately a true story of an appalling nature. We're that it wasn't true. It's a story about the woman who wilfully,for her own personal gain, destroyed people's lives with far-reaching consequences. She changed the face of adoption forever and not in a good way. As an adoptee of the closed system, I kept wishing throughout the book that she was still alive so I could personally kill her.
  
  I gave this book 5 stars because of the story which was told in an authentic, researched way; not because the author was the best writer on the planet.
• 
  J.M. Cornwell

  “The Untold Story of Georgia Tann, the Baby Seller Who Corrupted Adoption.”
  
  In 1924 when Georgia Tann made Memphis her home base for what would become the most pervasive and powerful organization in Tennessee history, and indeed American history, she changed the rules of adoption and left a legacy of pain and moral destruction in her wake that took long after her death in 1950 to rectify. Georgia Tann also created a demand for adoptable children where none existed before.
  
  Despite the subtitle of The Baby Thief, Barbara Bisantz Raymond does a wonderful job of providing a three-dimensional portrait of Georgia Tann. Raymond gives credit where credit is due and steps back from what could have easily descended into yellow journalism of the worst sort in playing the blame game. Raymond has a personal interest in Georgia Tann’s story because her daughter is adopted and Raymond’s emotions and thoughts are poignantly present without being overwhelming.
  
  It would have been far too easy to see only the lives and hopes and dreams Georgia Tann destroyed in exhuming the hidden facts Tann worked so hard to keep buried, but Raymond offers up as much of the real Georgia Tann as could be found. With tact and aplomb, Raymond peers behind the masks Tann so carefully constructed and gives dimension and heart to what many saw as a cold and heartless woman whose only motivation was greed and who others believed was a saint. The Baby Thief is a story not only of Georgia Tann’s excesses and eccentricities, her crimes against families and children, or the demonizing of a saint, but the chronicle of the men and women who have made it back from the abyss to help others reunite with their families and their roots.
  
  What Raymond offers is history and reconciliation from a mother who faced her fear of losing her child to her birth mother and triumphed by gaining a child no longer tortured by questions of who she is and where she came from, a child who became a bridge between two worlds and two families, paving the way for other mothers to reach out and reclaim a relationship their children and peace with their choices. The Baby Thief is a hallmark of investigative journalism and an emotionally charged story of families living through a dark and complex time in American history handled with honesty and tact that will change you forever.
  
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• 
  Christine

  HOLY CRAP. this is a true story. I had no idea modern adoption got started and became mainstream as a result of a corrupt/scandalous woman. The problems adoptees face today in trying to get their own records is because of Georgia Tann. The book got 4 stars because the author could have said everything she did in about half the pages...she was so repetitive. It was riveting, like a car accident.
• 
  Susan Snodgrass

  I recently read Lisa Wingate's 'based on fact' fiction title, 'Before We Were Yours', which was based on this actual tale. I heard Lisa speak at a function and she mentioned this title as one on which she relied for research. I had heard of Georgia Tann before and seen two made for TV movies about her life and work in the late 1980s and early 1990s. I love history and so I wanted to own this book to learn even more.
  
  This book is the true story of the woman who sold over five thousand neglected, abused and stolen babies in the course of her work with the Tennessee Children's Home Society in the late 1920s through 1950. For almost three decades Georgia Tann was nationally lauded for her work at her children's home. In reality, she was selling many of her charges, often neglected, abused and stolen from their birth parents. A good 500, a low estimate, died while in her care, although care is not a word that should be used for what Georgia Tann did.
  
  Using 'spotters', Tann stole entire families of children from dirt roads as they walked home from school, played away from their homes and just outright theft from their mothers' arms. Tann popularized adoption at a time when it was thought of as something not done, something to be feared and discouraged. She coerced women into leaving their children in her care, only to sell them and tell their parents they had been given to people who could take better care of them. During Tann's reign, the Memphis infant mortality rate soared to the highest in the country!
  
  Author Raymond draws on many true life stories from Tann's victims and their families and tells a tale that will leave you breathless in its depravity. All because of money. This is a riveting narrative that will cause the reader to realize what these families went through for many, many years. How did Tann get away with such atrocities? She had judges, doctors, nurses, hospitals and in some cases, welfare workers in her pocket.
  
  This story will intrigue and horrify the reader. Just sitting and pondering what one woman could conceive in her heart and carry to fruition for nearly 30 years is mind blowing. This book is definitely worth the read.
• 
  Terri Lynn

  I was riveted to this book and the story of Georgia Tann, a lesbian woman who studied law but was forbidden by her lawyer father from practicing law because women in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s usually didn't. She never married since lesbians needed to stay in the closet and were not allowed to marry but she did adopt a child and even adopted her lover Ann so she would be able to inherit. She and Ann pretended to be sisters in front of many people.
  
  Georgia Tann was a ruthlessly evil bitch. That is as kind as I can possibly be and even that is a stretch. It is almost beyond imagination how she won the protection of a corrupt "boss" named Crump who ruled Memphis and thus help from police, state officials, the legislature, and even judges who permitted her to steal babies and children, have social workers rip children away from poor couples and single moms, abuse them, keep them in intolerable conditions and sell them (even advertised them in the paper). She often gifted legislators and cops with free babies!
  
  This is the story of what happened. It is Georgia's story, the stories of the children she ripped away from their families, birth moms and dads, adoptive parents (some famous celebrities) and of reunions decades later. This is a fascinating book of what went on in Tennessee and spread to other states at the hands of Georgia Tann. Highly recommended.
• 
  Cassie

  Not the best writer in the world, but interesting material esp with regard to Tann's long-term legacy on the policies of the US adoption industry. It was a bit unsatisfying in the end, however, because the author seemed unwilling to make the very natural intellectual leap to the idea that adoption instead of being 'corrupted' by this one admittedly truly evil woman is, in fact, a corrupt practice at its heart, one that should be used as rarely as possible in providing for the welfare of human children.
• 
  Dele Haynes

  If you happen to read "Before We Were Yours" this summer, this is the story of the woman, Georgia Tann, who caused all that pain.
  Denied the career as an attorney her father, Tann put her skills of persuasion into the field of child welfare. When she began, adoptions were almost unheard of. She took it upon herself to place children she deemed in need of a better home with "better" families. There were no regulations set up to handle adoptions, so most of the adoption laws in this country were enacted by her. Most of them were to protect her illegal adoptions.
  Georgia Tann became greedy. She used her adoptions to amass a fortune of over a million dollars. She had spies of social workers, nurses and corrupt deputies to scout for children who fit her needs. She falsified records to hide who these children really were in case their parents tried to get them back. She had corrupt judges who worked for her too.
  Georgia Tann would be a horror if she had just stopped there, but there were many deaths attributed to her care and the many who just disappeared. She also was surrounded by pedophiles, herself being one. Her control still continues to this day because most of our ideas and laws about adoption leads by to her desire to hide her illegal adoptions.
• 
  Sharon

  I think the key factors that should determine the rating of this book are 1) the correctness (and relevance) of the description of how Tann carried out adoptions, and trickier, 2) the correctness of the description of the effect that Tann had on the general practice of adoption, continuing decades after her death. This is hard for me to rate, since I actually had never even heard of (or didn't recall hearing of) Georgia Tann previously. Some of the primary allegations that Raymond makes against the way Tann was directly involved in adoption is that she:
  - Pressured poor and/or single, white mothers to relinquish their children, or actually stole them (in many cases taking newborns from the hospital and telling the mother the child had died),
  - Maltreated children while they were in her care,
  - Charged adoptive parents exorbitant and unjustified fees for adoptive placements,
  - Did not review the qualifications of prospective adoptive parents (sometimes leading to children's placement with abusive adoptive parents), and
  - Falsified birth certificates so that adoptive parents were recorded as the biological parents, and prevented anyone access from the original records.
  
  Raymond's interpretation is that Tann was responsible for the modern practice of closed adoption. This includes:
  - The prevention of contact of the birth parents with the child and adoptive parents, and
  - Altering adoptees' original birth certificates such that the adoptive parents are listed as the birth parents and locking up the original records.
  Additionally, she posits that Tann was responsible for:
  - Swaying public opinion to believe that the biological children of single and/or poor white mothers would be better raised by wealthy white couples,
  - Swaying attitudes among infertile couples that adoption is a viable option for becoming parents,
  - Popularizing the idea that adopted children are "blank slates" who can be just like biological children to adoptive parents and who have no need or interest in knowing about their roots, and
  - Developing a market (national and international) for adoption "brokers" who find vulnerable mothers, get (through hook or by crook) their children, place them with adoptive parents, and make a lot of money.
  
  Now, I was well familiar with all the points noted immediately above about closed adoption, but it's impossible for me to say whether Tann is really responsible for them. It seems clear that Tann either followed or originated these practices, however.
  
  I was a bit confused by Raymond's repeated reference to "ethical social workers" who followed some of Tann's practices. For example, she notes that "Georgia's influence was so great that even ethical social workers, by the 1940s, place for adoption many more children than they should have. (p. 117)" Yet, it seems to me that NONE of the aspects of adoption, as Tann carried it out, are "ethical" (except perhaps the more accepting public attitude toward adoption). More examples... "Ethical professionals could conceive of only one way of competing with baby sellers: by imitating them (p. 215)." And on p. 216: "And to mollify adoptive parents 'fearful' of losing their children, social workers began refusing to give adult adoptees information about their roots. To save children, ethical social workers denied them their past."
  
  Raymond's statement that "...American adoptees are legally forbidden from knowledge of their birth parents' names (p. 201)" is a bit of a stretch. Yes, adoptees with closed adoptions in many states have no access to their original birth records. (And I personally agree this lack of access is unethical.) But in some states (as Raymond herself acknowledges) this is not the case. Further, open adoptions (where there is some degree of contact between the birth and adoptive family) are not, to my knowledge, illegal, if all parties consent.
  
  I also agree with some other reviewers that the information in the book could have been presented more succinctly. Also, I'm a little ambivalent about whether the extensive information at the beginning of the book was necessary (about the way the yellow fever plague decades earlier made Memphians more vulnerable to exploitations), but it was interesting.
  
  In any case, if Tann really WAS even partially responsible for changing adoption practices in the ways Raymond alleges, this is an extremely important book. And even if she wasn't responsible for closed adoption, the book is still important because of the direct effect on the 5,000 to 6,000 children Tann placed for adoption. I think the reason that, overall, I believed Raymond's assertions about Tann is that, even today, adoptive parents frequently pay tens of thousands of dollars. It almost seems inevitable, when most prospective adoptive parents have so much more economic power than most birth parents, the "adoption market" would be corrupted.
• 
  Bitchin' Reads

  Thanks to this book I am now terrified of having children and someone snatching them up to sell in child trafficking. The woman the book is about, Georgia Tann, was the pioneer of such actions. While there hadn't been much of a market for adoption, she created one by advertising children as moldable vessels that could fill a hole in a family where one or both parents were infertile--she relied heavily on emphasizing nurture over nature, which was detrimental to the success and happiness of adoptive parents and adoptees a sizable percentage of the time. She also contributed to child servitude, selling children for manual labor with similar circumstances to indentured servitude.
  
  One thing that struck me most was the idea that children were better off dead than poor, which was one of the driving forces that rationalized Georgia's actions. Even when birth parents pleaded for the return of their children, who had been well loved and cared for as best as the parent(s) could provide, they were most often told that they should be grateful for the advantages their children now had with the "high type" people they were placed.
  
  By the way, Georgia Tann was like a twisted version of Robin Hood who, instead of stealing wealth, stole children from poor white single mothers and sold them to affluent and wealthy white families. She achieved this by: simply taking them off the street; from their yards; using the corrupt court system to have the parents' rights dissolved and given to her; by waiting in hospitals as these women labored, taking the baby, and having the hospital staff tell the mothers that their children had been stillborn; the list of atrocious baby stealing methods goes on and on. She would steal siblings and split them up. She would steal children to place them with "baby farmers" when the children's homes were full, pay those female caregivers a lump sum or small dividends over time, and most often the children in their care would be neglected once the money was received and full--a large percentage of these children were left in the sun to burn and dry to death, given no sustenance, smothered, dropped, beaten...whatever horrible things you can imagine, a child somewhere at some point suffered that fate.
  
  There was also many children who suffered sexual abuse at the hands of Georgia Tann, her employees, and the adoptive parents. At this time there were no rights given to these children, no official legal processes, no extensive review of potential adoptive parents' homes and personalities. Georgia and her people could take a child from the birth parent one day and, the next day, hand the child over to those who bought the.. You could say the screening process of adoptive parents was nil to minimal considering how fast these children sometimes came into and left Georgia's care.
  
  I could go on and on and on and on about everything that shocked and bothered me. I'm a young woman committed to my significant other with the hope of having birth children and adopting children, so this book was enlightening regarding the history of adopting. I highly recommend that you check out this book if you are interested in adopting a child, because some of the bad that Georgia instigated and paved the road for still happens today. I feel like I have a better sense of what to expect and what to watch out for, as well as what obstacles and concerns I will face and need to handle.
  
  A solid 4 out of 5 bitchin' stars from me. That was a whirlwind of emotions I experienced. I'm glad to have finally read this book after owning it for years.
• 
  Rena

  Fabulous book and well written. Although I’ve worked in the field of abuse and neglect for 20+ years I found this to be one of the hardest books to digest, meaning sometimes I read only a few pages at a time and then sat it down for a day or more. The insidious, sadistic manner in which Tann and her cronies abused innocent children and families is appalling. I highly recommend the read for anyone in the social service field or who wants to learn more about the history and system of adoption in the US. Masterful work Barbara Bisantz Raymond! Thank you for shining a light on the truth of Georgia Tann and how your family welcomed your daughter’s birth family into your lives! May only good come to you and your family!
• 
  Meaghan

  This was an excellent, well-written and -researched social history, thoughtfully interlaced with the author’s own adoption experience. I had no idea Georgia Tann was so important a figure, and so evil (almost deliciously so). This is a must-read for anyone interested in adoption, from any perspective.
• 
  Kim Savage

  The subject matter in this book is so horrific I can’t even recommend it to anyone. However, if you have a strong countenance, you ought to take time to read it. The history of adoption is sickening, but for the sake of all adoptees, international and domestic, it needs to be remembered.
• 
  Dara S.

  After reading the fictionalized account of Georgia Tann (much of it based on fact) in the book Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate, I had to find out more about Georgia Tann. Georgia Tann was pure evil. She did not care about the children just about lining her pocketbook.
• 
  Leah K

  The Baby Thief: The Untold Story of Georgia Tann, the Baby Seller Who Corrupted Adoption by Barbara Raymond
  302 pages
  
  ★★ ½
  
  Georgia Tann was considered the mother of modern adoption – noble…right? Maybe not so much so. From 1926-1950 she had the nasty habit of stealing children from unwed mothers and selling them for a hefty price to the rich and the famous and death among children in her “care” was common. Even after it came out with what she did, parents whose children were stolen had no right to do anything, nor did the adopted children – what was done was done according to the state (she had quite a backing in high up places).
  
  The subject matter in this book is quite fascinating. The writing… not so much so. The author is known for writing articles for magazines and perhaps that’s what she should stick to. This book comes off as one very long article. The research is extensive but she at times has a habit of making it more of an editorial with her “I think” thrown in quite commonly. It was repetitive in many parts. I found myself counting down the pages towards the end… “only 23 pages left….only 22 pages left…” which as anyone knows if they’ve watched the time, makes it that much more slow. But regardless, this is a part of history that deserves to be told, it has effected many and still does up to this day. It is disturbing and tragic.
  
• 
  heidi

  2 1/2. fascinating topic and amount of information, very well-researched, poorly written. i felt like i learned so much historically about the political climate of 1920-40s memphis and the history of adoption. my heart ached for so many of the families who we affected by the ruthless georgia tann. while it wasn't a long book by any means, the heavy subject matter made it difficult to read quickly. i did not like the organizational structure of the book. i felt like it went back a forth a lot on personal histories to her thoughts, and i didn't enjoy her thoughts very much. she interjected herself and her opinions too often. by the end i felt the author(who is an adoptive parent herself) was convinced that no one should adopt because there is too much grief and not enough good.
• 
  Anastasia Hanneken

  After reading the novel Before We Were Yours, I decided to read this account of Georgia Tann. This book tells of the horrific events that involved the Tennessee Childrens Home. It also gave me more insight of adoption in America. Highly recommended.
• 
  Pamela Tracy

  This was good, not a story, more a reporting. There were personal accounts, startling facts, and such. It was very informative. There was some redundancies. I read this after reading Lisa Wingates When We Were Yours. That madeit much more enjoyable.
• 
  Melissa Sutton

  Well written but extremely hard to read due to the content.
  
  Trigger Warnings: child abuse, sexual abuse, kidnapping, trafficking, child neglect
• 
  Lauren

  I enjoyed Lisa Wingate's fictional telling, and wanted the narrative on how this could be allowed to happen. Anytime secrecy is cultivated, deception and depravity can creep in. Heartbreaking.
• 
  Heather Watson

  Picked this up after finishing "Before We Were Yours". What this author did and found was fantastic, but there was so much more potential to this story that I hope is picked up by a more professional investigative journalist/author before these stories are completely lost.
• 
  Tim Collingwood

  As someone who wants to adopt if I marry someone the same sex as I am, this book was challenging for me to read, but since I appreciate the truth-tellers of this world, and unsuppressing all aspects of history, including the negative ones, I read this book after meeting the author at a book signing that Octavia Spencer was at, which Spencer is optioning into a film.
  
  Barbara Raymond really does explore all aspects of the times of Georgia Tann, the effect this knowledge had in her own life, and the effect this has on adoption now as it did then. There are improvements to adoption, but the journey is long for those adopted to have full rights still to seek out their birth parents and get answers. A necessary, hard read but a good read.
• 
  Amanda

  Such an interesting story (kidnapping! baby selling! the foundation of our adoption system!) but the writing left so much to be desired. I wasn't sure why the story was told in first person. I just kept thinking, "This isn't about *you*" as the author droned on about her feelings on the subject matter. The best biographers make you feel the way they do about the subject by telling a great story, here she just tries to hit you over the head with it.
• 
  Ren

  This is a hard book to read, but absolutely worth it.
  Though this book could have used a stronger editor to iron out a few spots where the writing grew convoluted, it's the material itself that makes me describe it as "hard to read." While I came to it already knowing an overview of Georgia Tann's crimes, I wasn't prepared for how devastating her legacy is.
  Overall, I'm glad to have read it and I'm surprised more people don't know about this horrifying moment in American history.
• 
  Carol Ann

  Georgia Tann was a ruthless money grabbing monster. In the 1920s through to her death of cancer in 1950 she was responsible for stealing babies and young children and selling them to the highest bidder. She had the backing of local government and law officers. She ruined thousands of lives while lining her own mishapen pockets. Thank God for reform.
• 
  Debi

  Another great read-if you love books that are true and will teach you something that you never knew before then this is that book.
  
  Although a very sad book its story needed to be told to enlighten the world on what happens in the Adoption world.
  
  I had no clue of the Adoption system before good or bad so I really learned allot, it was quite the eye opener.
• 
  Kayla

  I started reading this last night and I said to Donnie, you should read this--it's about someone who steals babies! Um, duh. Anyway, I highly recommend this book for anyone who likes nonfiction and is obsessed with adoption blogs (maybe that's just me).
• 
  Holly

  this was a good book. of course, it wasn't the first time i've heard of stealing babies for adoption, but i had never heard of georgia tann before and i didn't know about her role in adoptions. i also didn't know that the "mommy dearest" child was possibly a stolen baby. very interesting!