For almost three decades, renowned baby-seller Georgia Tann ran a children's home in Memphis, Tennessee -- selling her charges to wealthy clients nationwide, Joan Crawford among them. Part social history, part detective story, part expose, The Baby Thief is a riveting investigative narrative that explores themes that continue to reverberate today.

Get the Summary of Barbara Bisantz Raymond's The Baby Thief in 20 minutes. Please note: This is a summary & not the original book. "The Baby Thief" by Barbara Bisantz Raymond explores the dark history of Georgia Tann's adoption practices in Memphis. Tann, who ran the Tennessee Children's Home Society, was known for dressing children in fine clothes to make them more adoptable and was involved in the illegal sale of babies with the complicity of prominent Tennesseans. Her operation went unchallenged for 26 years until exposed as a baby seller. Tann's actions had lasting effects on the adoption institution and the lives of those affected, including siblings separated and sold to different families, and children who suffered from being taken from their birth parents. The book recounts the stories of adoptees like Peggy and Elizabeth Huber, who faced identity crises, and Barbara Davidson, who suffered sexual abuse. Raymond's research uncovers the far-reaching impact of Tann, with adoptees and their relatives across the United States searching for answers. The book also delves into the history of child care and the evolution of adoption practices, highlighting the societal shift towards secrecy in adoptions influenced by Tann's legacy. Raymond's personal connection to adoption as an adoptive parent herself adds depth to her investigation into Tann's corrupt practices and the ongoing battle for adoptees' rights to their identities.

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 The Memphis orphanage I visited was very different from the one in Georgia’s story. It was long gone, replaced by a rectangular structure housing the offices of the Baptist Brotherhood. #2 It was difficult for adoptive parents to admit involvement with a criminal, and few did. Many claimed they were unaware of the desperate, futile habeas corpus suits that were reported in the local press, and of Georgia’s Home’s expulsion from the Child Welfare League of America. #3 Georgia had transformed potential adversaries into accomplices, including politicians, legislators, judges, attorneys, doctors, nurses, and social workers who scouted child victims and wrongly terminated birth parents’ rights. #4 The story of Georgia’s Home and the stolen children was largely ignored by the press. The parents of the stolen children were lucky to have been delivered into wealth, and many were emotionally attached to their new parents. But few protested this treatment.

From the 1940s through the 1960s, young pregnant women entered the front door of a clinic in a small North Georgia town. Sometimes their babies exited out the back, sold to northern couples who were desperate to hold a newborn in their arms. But these weren't adoptions--they were transactions. And one unethical doctor was exploiting other people's tragedies. Jane Blasio was one of those babies. At six, she learned she was adopted. At fourteen, she first saw her birth certificate, which led her to begin piecing together details of her past. Jane undertook a decades-long personal investigation to not only discover her own origins but identify and reunite other victims of the Hicks Clinic human trafficking scheme. Along the way she became an expert in illicit adoptions, serving as an investigator and telling her story on every major news network. Taken at Birth is the remarkable account of her tireless quest for truth, justice, and resolution. Perfect for book clubs, as well as those interested in inspirational stories of adoption, human trafficking, and true crime.

This “immensely stimulating story of true crime down the ages” tells the history of human violence, from Peking Man to the Mafia (The Times, London). This landmark work offers a completely new approach to the history and psychology of human violence. Its sweep is broad, its research meticulous and detailed. Colin Wilson explores the bloodthirsty sadism of the ancient Assyrians and the mass slaughter by the armies led by Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, Ivan the Terrible, and Vlad the Impaler. He delves into modern history, exploring the genocides practiced by Stalin and Hitler. He then takes a chilling look into the sex crimes and mass murders that have become symbols of the neuroses and intensity of modern life. With breathtaking audacity and stunning insight, Wilson puts criminality firmly in a wide, illuminating historical context. “A work of massive energy, compulsively readable, splendidly informative . . . it establishes Wilson in a European tradition of thought that includes H. G. Wells, Sartre and Shaw.” —Time Out London “A tremendous resource for crime buffs as well as a challenging exposition for some of the more subtle criminological thinking of our time.” —Kirkus Reviews

In 1950, the Governor of Tennessee called for an investigation of the Tennessee Children's Home black market baby operations, said to have grossed $1 million for Georgia Tann, the superintendent of the local branch of the home. Tann was accused of fraudulently persuading pregnant mothers to relinquish their children. A number of Hollywood celebrities adopted children through the home, namely Joan Crawford, June Allyson, and Dick Powell. During the investigation, local attorneys and justices were found to be part of the scandalous network of adoption that allowed adoptive parents to be out-of-state residents. The story is dramatic and shows southern politics at its worst--congenial, respected public figures running shady deals in the back room. Thousands of children were placed in adopted homes during the agency's operation. Each case is a fascinating story involving the search and reunion of adopted children with their natural families.

The compelling, poignant true stories of victims of a notorious adoption scandal—some of whom learned the truth from Lisa Wingate’s bestselling novel Before We Were Yours and were reunited with birth family members as a result of its wide reach From the 1920s to 1950, Georgia Tann ran a black-market baby business at the Tennessee Children’s Home Society in Memphis. She offered up more than 5,000 orphans tailored to the wish lists of eager parents—hiding the fact that many weren’t orphans at all, but stolen sons and daughters of poor families, desperate single mothers, and women told in maternity wards that their babies had died. The publication of Lisa Wingate’s novel Before We Were Yours brought new awareness of Tann’s lucrative career in child trafficking. Adoptees who knew little about their pasts gained insight into the startling facts behind their family histories. Encouraged by their contact with Wingate and award-winning journalist Judy Christie, who documented the stories of fifteen adoptees in this book, many determined Tann survivors set out to trace their roots and find their birth families. Before and After includes moving and sometimes shocking accounts of the ways in which adoptees were separated from their first families. Often raised as only children, many have joyfully reunited with siblings in the final decades of their lives. Christie and Wingate tell of first meetings that are all the sweeter and more intense for time missed and of families from very different social backgrounds reaching out to embrace better-late-than-never brothers, sisters, and cousins. In a poignant culmination of art meeting life, many of the long-silent victims of the tragically corrupt system return to Memphis with the authors to reclaim their stories at a Tennessee Children’s Home Society reunion . . . with extraordinary results. Advance praise for Before and After “In Before and After, authors Judy Christie and Lisa Wingate tackle the true stories behind Wingate’s blockbuster Before We Were Yours, of the orphans who survived the Tennessee Children’s Home Society. With a journalist’s keen eye and a novelist’s elegant prose, Christie and Wingate weave together the stories that inspired Before We Were Yours with the lives that were changed as a result of reading the novel. Readers will be educated, enlightened, and enraptured by this important and flawlessly executed book.”—Pam Jenoff, author of The Orphan’s Tale and The Lost Girls of Paris