(no subject)

[kokosbolla.livejournal.com]

  o

one wonders where they actually ended up at...

Comments

[misstia]

sent FREE with a 90 day trial....WTF??? is this for real? goodness!!! I mean, i know times were different then, but uh, still....

yeah, i wonder where they ended up too....

[fritters.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I love the whole "trial" thing, I was going to comment on that myself. As if they're puppies.

"Hey, check out some of our kids, and if they don't match your drapes, just send them back!"

[anne-jumps.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I know I shouldn't be laughing at that ad, but good God.

[jodi.livejournal.com]

some of them became...governors (of michigan and alaska, i think). i've met quite a few, there are as many good stories as there are mediocre or bad.

[baron-waste.livejournal.com]

I saw a good TV movie some years ago about the Orphan Train (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orphan_Train) movement. It was controversial - every such aid program is - but it made sense.

Shame, how someone stamped that woman's forehead, though.

[kokosbolla.livejournal.com]

isn´t it a young man?

[reynardo.livejournal.com]

Farmers and middle-class families who hadn't had any children of their own would request an orphan, either with a truthful view to adopting, or looking for cheap work on the farms or around the house. Children would be sent out to the distant rural areas where inspectors couldn't really keep an eye on them, and for a lot of them, while it was harsh it was much better than being in a home.

A lot of these children wouldn't actually be orphans as such - they'd be the children of unwed mothers who have put the child into the system in the hope that the child gets adopted and the mother can go on with her life as if nothing happened. It sounds cruel, but that was what would happen, because if the mother didn't give the child up, her life was often completely ruined.

To give some perspective, in 1974 (when there was no child support for single unwed mothers) over 1000 babies were adopted out in NSW Australia alone. In 1984, less than 30 were.

In addition, children would be given up for adoption if the family was very large and couldn't afford to look after them (happened to my great-grandmother in 188?), if the mother had died (often in childbirth) and the father couldn't look after the little ones, or if the parents were in prison (common enough for minor crimes) and no-one could look after the children.

[tanwen.livejournal.com]

Note the wording:

"Good looks" "Of good parentage"

"Very promising"

"Fine looking"

"Good looking & intelligent"

"Fat & pretty"


Why not just auction them off?

[spud14.livejournal.com]

Yikes, "had his foot straightened". I hate to think of how they fixed clubfoot back then.

[nokomarie.livejournal.com]

Same way they do now, braces.

[spud14.livejournal.com]

Oh, really? I've only known one kid with it, and he needed surgery. I should really google this shit.

Good thing for the poor kid though.

[bigkidsid.livejournal.com]

ever seen misery?

[spud14.livejournal.com]

I also love the "send two stamps" bit, like they're ordering that spider monkey that always gets posted.

[kokosbolla.livejournal.com]

yeah