The default setting for adoption in our time in America is open: kids know who their parents are. But decades ago, when premarital sex was frowned upon and birth control was rare, adoption was closed, and closed tightly.
Children never knew who their biological parents were, and those parents seldom knew the landing places of their kids. That was Margaret Erle's experience, even though she ended up marrying the man who fathered the child she gave up for adoption.
Journalist Gabrielle Glaser tells that story, and the larger story of adoptions past, in the book American Baby. The author joins us with an overview.