Gabrielle Glaser with American Baby: A Mother, A Child, and the Shadow History of Adoption

As closed records of adoption are being legally challenged in states nationwide and open adoption is the rule today, journalist Gabrielle Glaser takes us back to a dark time in America’s history. Her acclaimed book reveals the lucrative and exploitative adoption industry during the 1960s Baby Boom, when agencies removed children from their birth mothers, placed them with hopeful families, and then firmly closed the door between them. Acting “in the best interests of all,” they separated families, including Margaret Erle’s. Don’t miss hearing her story of love, loss, and the search for identity – a tale that she and her son born in 1961 share with millions of Americans, their “powerful” family history “illuminating a universal truth” (The New York Times Book Review).