Georgia Tann

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Georgia Tann (d. September 1950) operated the Tennessee Children's Home Society an adoption agency in Memphis, Tennessee. Tann used the unlicensed home as a front for her black market baby adoption scheme from the 1920s until a state investigation closed the institution in 1950. Tann died of cancer before the investigation made its findings public.

1 Illegal Activities
2 Out of State Adoptions
3 Sources
4 External links

[edit] Illegal Activities

Tann used pressure tactics, threats of legal action and other methods to take children from their birth parents -- mostly from poor single mothers -- and selling them to wealthy patrons. Tann also arranged for the taking of children born to inmates at Tennessee mental institutions and those born to wards of the State through her connections.

Tann also arranged for what her victims (now adult) refer to as kidnapping. In some cases, single parents would drop their children off at nursery schools only to be told that that welfare agents had taken the children. In other cases, children would be placed with the society because a family would be in the midst of illness of unemployment only find out later that the Society had either adopted the out, or had no record of the children ever being placed. Tann was also documented as taking children born to unwed mothers at birth, claiming that the newborns required medical care; when the mothers would ask about the children, Tann would tell them that the babies had died when in reality, they were placed in foster homes or adopted out.

Tann's crimes were accomplished with the aid of Memphis Family Court Judge Camille Kelly, who used her position of authority to sanction Tann's tactics and activities. Tann would identify children as being from homes which could not provide for their care, and Kelly would push the matter through her dockets. Kelly also severed custody of divorced mothers, placing the children with Tann, who then arranged for adoption of the children into "homes better able to provide for the children's care". However many of the children were placed into homes where they were used as child labor on farms, or with abusive families.

When an adoptive parent would discover that the information on the child was incorrect (such as in cases of falsified medical histories) Tann would often threaten the adoptive parents with possible legal action that would force a surrender of their children (ordered by Judge Kelly) by demonstrating that they were unfit parents.

Tann also destroyed records of the children that were "processed" through the Society, and conducted minimum background checks on the adoptive homes. Many of the files of the children were "fictionalized" before being presented to the adoptive parents, which failed to provide the proper disclosure on the childs circumstances prior to being placed with the society. As a result, the Child Welfare League of America dropped the Society from its list of qualifying institutions in 1941[1].

The Georgia Tann/Tennessee Children's Home Society scandal resulted in adoption reform [2] laws in Tennessee in 1951.

[edit] Out of State Adoptions

Under Tennessee law at the time, the Home charged about $7 per adoption. Adoptions in states such as Mississippi, Arkansas and Missouri could be arranged for $750.

But Tann also arranged for out-of-state private adoptions where she charged a premium - upwards of $5,000 per child - for her "services". It is alleged that she pocketed 75% of the fees from these adoptions for her own personal use, and failed to report the income to both the Society Board and the Internal Revenue Service.

Notable personalities who used Tann's services (but were not aware of the tactics used by Tann to acquire many of the children processed through the Tennessee Children's Home Society) included actress Joan Crawford (daughters Christina Crawford, and twins Cathy and Cynthia [3] were adopted through the agency). June Alyson and husband Dick Powell also used the Memphis-based home for adopting a child, as did Ric Flair.

The scandal was also the subject of two made for television films:

Missing Children (1981)
Stolen Babies (1993)

The Tennessee Children's Home Society was closed in the 1950s, and is not to be confused with the Tennessee Children's Home, which is accredited by the the state of Tennessee. The Children's Home has no legacy connection with Georgia Tann or the Society which she operated.

[edit] Sources

Barbara Raymond. Baby Thief, The: The Untold Story of Georgia Tann, the Baby Seller Who Corrupted Adoption.2007. 320p. Carroll & Graf.
PROFILE: Mary Margulis St. Louis Post - Dispatch St. Louis, Mo.: May 10, 1993. pg. 1 Section: EVERYDAY MAGAZINE
Report to Governor Gordon Browning on Shelby County Branch, Tennessee Children's Home Society 1951, [Nashville] : State of Tennessee, Dept. of Public Welfare
of Tennessee, Adoption Records Access Law
Tennessee Black Market Adoption Information