{"product_id":"the-baby-thief-the-untold-story-of-georgia-tann-the-baby-seller-who-corrupted-adoption-9781402758638","title":"The Baby Thief: The Untold Story of Georgia Tann  the Baby Seller Who Corrupted Adoption","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe story  first told by Barbara Raymond in a magazine article that inspired a 60 Minutes feature  was shocking. Georgia Tann  nationally lauded for arranging adoptions out of her childrens home in Memphis  Tennessee  was actually a baby seller who terrorized poor  often unwed mothers by stealing their children and selling them to wealthy clients like actors Joan Crawford and Dick Powell. Parents would keep toddlers indoors  and the mother superior of a local orphanage hid babies in attics  but  protected by political boss Ed Crump  Tann sold over 5 000 children  and did much worse. So many died through neglect that Memphiss infant mortality rate soared to the highest in the country. Tann abused some of her charges  and placed others with pedophiles. During her twenty-six years of operation from 1924 to 1950  Tann also virtually invented modern American adoption  popularizing it  commercializing it  and corrupting it with secrecy. To cover her crimes  Tann falsified adoptees birth certificates  sealing their true ones and issuing new ones that portrayed adoptive parents as birth parents. This practice was approved by legislators across the country who believed it would spare adoptees the onus of illegitimacy. An adoptive mother and award-winning journalist who interviewed hundreds of Georgia Tann victims  Barbara Raymond has written a riveting account of a little known and dark chapter in American history. Its themes continue to reverberate  with most states still denying adult adoptees their original birth certificates and harboring other remnants of Tanns corrupt practices.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45646887190581,"sku":"ByrdShop_1402758634","price":184.36,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9781402758638.jpg?v=1781680089","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/the-baby-thief-the-untold-story-of-georgia-tann-the-baby-seller-who-corrupted-adoption-9781402758638","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}