From Bloodlines to the Baby Scoop Era to Border Closings: A Brief History of Adoption

Awakened by Adoption: History, Trends and the Voices That Matter

Adoption is complex, beautiful, and sometimes painful. For white adoptive parents like me, it is also a journey we had no idea we were diving into. Along the way, we encounter awakenings we didn’t know were part of the path—a reckoning with the systems, assumptions, and privileges that shaped our ability to adopt, and the painful realization of the life our children are living every single day. These are things we never had to think about before—realities we could ignore—until our children’s questions and experiences forced us to confront them.

It is sometimes painful to wake up to these realities. Yet inside that discomfort lies a beautiful invitation: to become advocates—fierce advocates—for our children and for justice as white parents of children of color. Through our experience, we can help dismantle white supremacy, spreading awareness and helping friends and family wake up simply by letting them witness the existential questions we grapple with because of our kids. Adoption itself would not have been possible without systems of white supremacy—ouch. Yet confronting that truth can also be liberating. By ending white supremacy, we all benefit.

Our kids teach us constantly: challenging assumptions, pointing out blind spots, and asking the tough questions we hadn’t anticipated. Questions like, “What were you thinking bringing me into a white family and a predominantly white neighborhood?” demand awareness, humility, and reflection. In this three-part series, I explore adoption from multiple angles—its history, current trends, and the growing presence of adoptee and birth parent voices in the mental health field—to provide context, awareness, and guidance for white parents navigating this challenging and transformative journey, and to support us in becoming the fierce advocates our children deserve.

From Bloodlines to the Baby Scoop Era to Border Closings: A Brief History of Adoption

Adoption has existed for thousands of years, but its purposes and practices have shifted dramatically depending on social, economic, and political context. According to Sarah Easterly in Adoption Unfiltered, adoption originally served pragmatic and strategic purposes rather than the child’s welfare. To make sense of this evolution, we can look at four broad eras:

1. Bloodlines: Ancient and Classical Adoption

Timeframe: Ancient Rome 6th Century CE

Children—usually boys—were adopted to transfer property, wealth, or political power to ensure a male heir. Adoption was about lineage, status, and continuity rather than caregiving or love. Even in the distant past, power and privilege shaped whose children were considered “worthy” to be adopted.

Resources: Wikipedia: Adoption in Ancient Rome; Easterly, Adoption Unfiltered

2. Charity and Orphans: Early Modern Adoption

Timeframe: 16th–19th Century Europe

Adoption reflected moral and religious values. Orphanages and charitable institutions emerged, and legal frameworks began defining parental rights and responsibilities. Adoption was framed as a moral duty, but often prioritized societal norms over children’s voices.

Resources: Easterly, Adoption Unfiltered; History.com: Orphanages

3. Orphan Trains: Moving Children Across the Country

Timeframe: 1854–1929

Roughly 250,000 orphaned or abandoned children from crowded Eastern cities were transported to rural communities across the U.S. Children were placed with families—often to work on farms—under the guise of offering them a “better life.” While some children thrived, many were exploited for labor. The orphan trains reveal how societal priorities often outweighed child welfare.

Resources: Orphan Train Project; Easterly, Adoption Unfiltered; Wikipedia: Orphan Trains

4. Baby Scoop Era: Modern U.S. Adoption

Timeframe: 1851–1970s

• 1851: Massachusetts Adoption Act established the first U.S. legal frameworks for adoption.

• 1910: First U.S. adoption agency opened, paving the way for widespread adoptions.

• 1940s–1970s: Roughly 4 million babies born to unwed mothers were placed for adoption.

Unwed mothers faced intense stigma and were often told they could not keep their babies. Economic hardship and lack of social support made raising a child extremely difficult, and many were coerced into adoption. Adoption records were sealed, ostensibly to “protect” mothers—but this also cut children off from their birth history, creating lifelong grief for many adoptees.

A particularly painful aspect was the disproportionate removal of Native American children. Before the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) of 1978, 25–35% of Native children were removed from their homes—often placed with white families, far from their culture, language, and community.

Similarly, Black families were—and still are—disproportionately targeted by child welfare systems. From slavery, when children were sold away from parents, to today, Black children are removed at twice the rate of white children and spend longer in foster care with fewer chances of reunification. These patterns reflect systemic racism, not higher rates of neglect or abuse.

Adoption during this era was big business and social engineering, deeply shaped by societal norms, privilege, and systemic inequities—millions of lives were shifted to fit social expectations, often at the expense of birth mothers’ autonomy and children’s rights.

Resources: Fessler, The Girls Who Went Away; Before They Were Adopted (Documentary); Easterly, Adoption Unfiltered; NICWA; Annie E. Casey Foundation

5. Border Closings: Contemporary and Interracial Adoption

Timeframe: 1970s–Present

International adoption surged after the domestic Baby Scoop supply declined, with 90% of interracial adoptions involving white parents adopting children of color.

• 2004: ~23,000 children entered the U.S. through adoption.

• 2024: Only 1,275 entered the U.S., reflecting growing recognition of the harm in separating children from their cultures and communities.

Countries are increasingly prioritizing keeping children within their home cultures, and some European nations have closed international adoption entirely.

Yet, adoption today remains deeply entangled with privilege and systemic inequities. White families historically had access to children of color, while families of color faced barriers to keeping their own children. Reconciling these realities is part of our ongoing work.

Resources: Easterly, Adoption Unfiltered; Child Welfare Information Gateway; University of Nevada

Food for Thought

Understanding adoption’s history isn’t just an intellectual exercise—it’s a mirror for the responsibilities and blind spots we carry as parents today. As a white parent of children of color, I’ve had to confront uncomfortable truths about the systems that made my adoption possible and the life my children are living every day.

The questions our children ask—“What were you thinking bringing me into a white family and neighborhood?”—challenge us to reflect, grow, and advocate fiercely.

So, here’s something to sit with:
How does knowing this history change the way you think about adoption, privilege, and advocacy?
What assumptions are you carrying that your children might already see?

Next week, we’ll dive into adoption trends today—how modern practices, transracial adoption, and the voices of adoptees and birth parents are reshaping the landscape and challenging us to show up differently.

Marion Van Namen
Founder, White Awake Parenting

Resource for Native American Child Removal & ICWA

Source: Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) overview
This federal resource details how ICWA was enacted in 1978 in response to the disproportionately high rate of Native children being removed from their tribes and placed in non-Native homes—studies indicate this affected 25–35% of Native children. It underscores how the law aimed to protect tribal culture and families.
Wikipedia

Resource for Disparities in Black Child Removal

Source: Human Rights Watch & ACLU joint findings
Their report confirms Black children are nearly twice as likely as white children to be removed from their homes—despite composing a smaller share of the population. This disparity reflects systemic bias, not necessarily greater neglect or abuse.
JURIST