Part 4 – In the Words of the “Adoption Professionals”: Marketing our children

Evidence of Systemic Violation of Single Parents Rights – Part 4

Advertising infant adoption:  How brokers marketed our infant sons and daughters, redistributing them to “Suitable, high class applicants”

Having removed babies (if ever so cunningly) from their mothers and families, “professionals” marketed them calling them “prize babies” and “heartbreakers”. This agency claims they “harm no one”, “save the mother and her family from social blight” and cleans the child from “taint of any form”.

 

 

Actual Letter from the Fairmount Maternity Home

This is a letter sent to a prospective adoptive parent from the Fairmount Maternity Home in Kansas City, Missouri.   This article was published in the Search of Texas Quarterly Update 11-1-52

 

Fairmount Maternity Hospital
Phone Harrison 4726
1414 East 27th Street Kansas City, Missouri

Mrs. (Private) 3017
(Private)] Tulsa, Oklahoma

We are pleased to advise you that we always have desirable babies for adoption. Their ages range from
a few days old to several weeks, and we offer for adoption only fine, healthy babies of good parentage.
We know you can make a satisfactory selection from these babies. It is necessary to fill out the enclosed
application blank, return to us with three letters of reference, and $5.00 for filing fee. We will advise you
when to come for the baby. Do not come until we notify you to come. But we will do our best to get a lovely baby for you at the earliest possible time. The court prefers one letter from a minister, if possible, and the other two from lawyers, doctors, bankers, or good business men. Have the letters mention both you and your husband. What the court wants to know is that you are people of good moral standing and are physically and financially able to care for your child. The adoption can be arranged in one day if desired.
The total cost of adoption, including court costs and blood test, is Forty-seven Dollars and Fifty cents
($47.50) By adopting a child from this institution, you are assured of getting a healthy, normal child, which has had a thorough medical examination and has been found free from disease of every character. We also encourage you to have your family doctor make an examination, and if he finds anything irregular, return the baby to us. Trusting we may have the pleasure of brightening up your home with a little one, and that we may hear from you in the immediate future. We are.

Very Truly Yours
Fairmount Maternity Home
Eve Hill Thomson -Superintendent