The Girls Who Went Away

In this deeply moving and myth-shattering work, Ann Fessler brings out into the open for the first time the astonishing untold history of the million and a half women who surrendered children for adoption due to enormous family and social pressure in the decades before Roe v. Wade. An adoptee who was herself surrendered during those years and recently made contact with her mother, Ann Fessler brilliantly brings to life the voices of more than a hundred women, as well as the spirit of those times, allowing the women to tell their stories in gripping and intimate detail.1. My Own Story as an Adoptee2. Breaking the SilenceDorothy IIAnnie3. Good Girls v. Bad GirlsNancy IClaudia4. Discovery and ShameMargeYvonne5. The Family's FearsJeanetteRuth6. Going AwayKaren IPam7. Birth and SurrenderMargaretLeslie8. The AftermathSusan IIIMadeline9. Search and ReunionSusan IIJennifer10. Talking and ListeningLydiaLinda I11. Every Mother but My OwnA Note on the InterviewsNotesAcknowledgmentsIndex