What constitutes a family? Tracing the dramatic evolution of Americans answer to this question over the past century, "Kinship by Design" provides the fullest account to date of modern adoption s history.
Beginning in the early 1900s, when children were still transferred between households by a variety of unregulated private arrangements, Ellen Herman details efforts by the U.S. Children s Bureau and the Child Welfare League of America to establish adoption standards in law and practice. She goes on to trace Americans shifting ideas about matching children with physically or...

What constitutes a family? Tracing the dramatic evolution of Americans answer to this question over the past century, "Kinship by Design" provides the fullest account to date of modern adoption s history.
Beginning in the early 1900s, when children were still transferred between households by a variety of unregulated private arrangements, Ellen Herman details efforts by the U.S. Children s Bureau and the Child Welfare League of America to establish adoption standards in law and practice. She goes on to trace Americans shifting ideas about matching children with physically or...