Georgia Tann (born Beulah George Tann ; July 18, 1891 - September 15, 1950) is an American child trader who operates the Tennessee Children's Home Society, an adoption agency in Memphis, Tennessee. Tann used an unlicensed home as a front for a black market baby adoption scheme from the 1920s until a country investigation of a number of his adoption fraud cases closed the agency in 1950. Tann died of cancer before the investigation made his findings public.
Video Georgia Tann
Illegal activity
Tann uses pressure tactics, threats of legal action, and other methods of taking children from their biological parents, mostly unfortunate single mothers, so he may sell them to his wealthy customers. Tann also arranges the taking of children born to inmates in Tennessee mental institutions and those born in state wards through their connections.
Tann also organizes kidnapping. In some cases, single parents will leave their children in the nursery school, only to be told that the welfare agency has taken the children. On the other hand, children will be temporarily placed with the community because a family is sick or unemployed, only to find out later that the Society has adopted them or has no record of the children ever placed. Tann is also documented as a child born to an unmarried mother at birth, claiming that a newborn needs medical care. When mothers ask about children, Tann tells them that the babies have died, but they are actually placed in an orphanage or adopted.
Tann's crime was resolved with the help of Judge Memphis Family Judge Camille Kelley, who used his authority position to impose sanctions on Tann's tactics and activities. Tann will identify the children as from home who can not provide their care, and Kelley will push this issue through his dock. Kelley also decided on custody of divorced mothers, placing children with Tann, who then arranged the adoption of children into a "better home for providing childcare." However, many of the children were placed in homes where they were used as child labor on farms, or with abusive families.
When his adoptive parents know that information about the child is not true, as in cases of medical histories being forged, Tann often threatens his adoptive parents with possible legal action that will force their children to surrender (ordered by Kelley) by showing them is an unworthy parent.
Tann destroys children's records processed through the Society and conducts minimal background checks in host houses. Many children's files are fictional before being presented to adoptive parents, who cover the state of the child before being placed with the community. As a result, the American Child Welfare League dropped the Society from the list of qualified institutions in 1941.
The Georgia Tann/Tennessee Children's Scandal produced an adoption reform law in Tennessee in 1951.
Maps Georgia Tann
Activation outside country
Under Tennessee law at the time, Home was charged about $ 7 per adoption. Adoption in countries like Mississippi, Arkansas, and Missouri can be set at $ 750.
However, Tann has also arranged for private adoption outside of the country where he charged a premium, more than $ 5,000 per child, for his "services". It is alleged that he pocketed 75% of the cost of this adoption for personal use and failed to report his earnings to the Community Institution or the Internal Revenue Service.
The Children's Children's House of Tennessee was closed down in 1950 and not to be confused with the Tennessee Children's Homes today, which is accredited by the state of Tennessee. The Children's House of Tennessee has no inheritance connection with Georgia Tann or the Community that it operates.
Tann generates millions of children, 90 percent of them to people in New York and California. New York and California swear to take action, but adoption of children has never been investigated, no children are restored.
Notable figures who use Tann's services (but do not know Tann's tactics for getting many children processed through the Tennessee Children's Home Organization) include actress Joan Crawford (Christina Crawford's daughter, and Cathy and Cynthia's twins adopted through the agency). June Allyson and her husband Dick Powell also use a Memphis-based home to adopt a child, as did the professional wrestler Ric Flair. New York Governor Herbert Lehman, who signed a law sealing the birth certificate of New York Scholarship recipients in 1935, also adopted a child through the agency.
In popular culture
The scandal was also the subject of two made for television movies:
- Missing Children: A Mother's Story (1982) (TV) at IMDb (1982)
- Baby Curian (1993) (TV) at IMDb (1993)
Georgia Tann's subject also appeared on the episode of Deadly Women's Investigation Discovery series "Above the Law" which aired September 13, 2013 and also appeared on episode Unsolved Mysteries .
The Georgia Tann subject is the focus of the nonfiction book, The Baby Thief: The Untold Story of Georgia Tann, Baby Who Corrupted Adoption Seller, by Barbara Bisantz Raymond.
A lightweight Georgia Tann fiction also appeared in Lisa Wingate's "Before We Were Yours" novel.
Warning to victim
For decades, nineteen children who died at Tennessee Children's Home Society due to Tann's dreaded abuse and negligence were buried in 14x13 lots in historic Elmwood Cemetery (Memphis, Tennessee) without tombstones. Tann bought the place sometime before 1923 and recorded the children there with their first names, "Baby Estelle," "Baby Joseph" and so on. In 2015, the graves raised $ 13,000 to set up a monument for their memories. It reads, in part, "In memory of the 19 children who end up resting here unmarked if unknown, and of all the hundreds who died under the cold, hard-handed Tennessee House Children's Society, their last resting place is unknown. a blessing.The hard lessons of their fate changed the adoption procedure and national law. "
See also
- Child wash
- Child sales
Source
- Barbara Raymond. Baby Thief: The Untold Story of Georgia Tann, Baby Seller Who Adopted Damage. 2007. 320p. Carroll & amp; Graf.
- PROFILE: Mary Margulis Louis Post - Dispatch Louis, Mo.: May 10, 1993. Part 1: EVERY MAGAZINE
- Report to Governor Gordon Browning at the Shelby County Branch, Tennessee Children's Home Society. 1951, [Nashville]: State of Tennessee, Department of Public Welfare.
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External links
- Linda Tollett Austin (July 1, 1993). Baby sold: adoption scandal of Home Children Tennessee . Praeger. ISBN 978-0-275-94585-5.
Group is working to cancel #TannLehmanLegacy https://www.facebook.com/NYAdoptionEquality/app/100265896690345/
- Edna Gladney or Georgia Tann? Comparison of contrast relics in adoption history
- Georgia Tann in the Search of the Mausoleum
- Camille Kelley in Discover the Mausoleum
- Ann Atwood Hollinsworth at Cari Mausoleum (adopted child and Georgia Tann partner)
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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