This article is a historical overview of the development of adoption law and practice in the US. During the colonial period, children needing homes were rarely adopted; rather, they were placed in almshouses, indentured, apprenticed, or placed in homes for domestic service. Massive migration and the industrial revolution caused the numbers of needy children to far exceed the capacity of this system and resulted in the emergence of two adoption movements: (1) Children’s Aid Society, which emphasized permanent placement and the ill effects of institutionalization; and (2) the establishment of foundling homes and placement in urban foster homes. Early adoption statutes appeared in the nineteenth century and began to place formal constraints, (judicial approval and investigation of the adequacy of child placements on the adoption process). In the early twentieth century, secrecy, anonymity, and sealing of records became required practice, and interest in adoption by childless couples soared. A growing mismatch between supply and demand resulted that prompted the emergence of nontraditional adoption practices, e.g. transracial adoption. In the latter twentieth century, adoptee and birthmother rights and challenges to the practice of sealing records emerged, and a split developed between the role of public and private adoption agencies, with private agencies focusing on finding adoptable children for childless adult couples, and public agencies on working with mistreated and abused children.
