Georgia Tann, who is credited as the ยinventorย of adoption and who was the founder of the now-defunct Tennessee Childrenยs Home Society, is the subject of a new book, The Baby Thief, written by Barbara Bisantz Raymond.
Tann was a native of Mississippi, but it was in Memphis that she founded her childrenยs home and ran a famously corrupt adoption racket responsible for the kidnapping and death of many children. Her methods of collecting kids included stealing them from single mothers, recent divorcees, and families in temporary financial difficulty, claiming that the child had died or that it had never been there in the first place. Prophetically, a lot of the kids did end up dying, due to the squalid conditions in the childrenยs home.
Tann would routinely adopt out her charges after minimal background checks. Joan ยno wire hangersย Crawford was among her more famous clientele.
Her childrenยs home was shut down in the 1950ยs, after Tannยs death.