Looks at how, when, and why modern adoption practices became a part of child welfare policy.

Adoption has been a politically charged subject since the Progressive Era, when it first became an established part of child welfare reform. In A Home for Every Child, Patricia Susan Hart looks at how, when, and why modern adoption practices became a part of child welfare policy.

The Washington Children’s Home Society (now the Children’s Home Society of Washington) was founded in 1896 to place children into adoptive and foster homes as a means of dealing with child abuse, neglect, and homelessness. Hart reveals why birth parents relinquished their children to the Society, how adoptive parents embraced these vulnerable family members, and how the children adjusted to their new homes among strangers.

Debates about nature versus nurture, fears about immigration, and anxieties about race and class informed child welfare policy during the Progressive Era. Hart sheds new light on that period of time and the social, cultural, and political factors that affected adopted children, their parents, and administrators of pioneering institutions like the Washington Children’s Home Society.

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"A smooth and informative narrative on the history of this pioneering Pacific northwest home placement society and a balanced treatment of its achievements and limitations."

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"A lucid and engaging history . . . an essential contribution to the literature on child dependency, foster care, and adoption. Hart . . . made it clear that the assumptions implicit in contemporary policy discussions . . . have a long history."

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"Helps to round out historical knowledge of child-saving practices in the period before the full professionalization of social work. . . . a fascinating and in-depth study of the multiple actors and institutions that shaped adoption practices."

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"[A]s a history of a movement that remains with us today, the book is fascinating."