Like Our Very Own

Book excerpt: "Berebitsky reveals that in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the rules governing adoption were much less rigid and adoptive parents and families were surprisingly diverse. In Like Our Very Own, she chronicles the experiences of adoptive parents and children during a century of great change, illuminating the prominent role adoption came to play in defining both motherhood and the family in America." "Drawing on case histories, letters from adoptive parents, congressional records, and popular fiction and magazines of the day, Berebitsky recovers the efforts of single women, African Americans, the elderly, and other marginalized citizens to adopt children of their own. She contends, however, that this diversity gradually diminished during the hundred years between the first adoption laws in 1851 and the postwar baby boom era." "A fascinating chapter in American social and cultural history, Like Our Very Own offers compelling evidence of the role that adoption has played in our evolving efforts to define the meaning and nature of both motherhood and family."