Гео́ргия Танн: Торго́вля детьми́ в Аме́рике

American child trafficker (1891–1950)

Beulah George "Georgia" Tann (July 18, 1891 – September 15, 1950), was an American social worker and child trafficker who operated the Tennessee Children's Home Society, an unlicensed adoption agency in Memphis, Tennessee. Tann used the home as a front for her black market baby adoption scheme from the 1920s to 1950. Young children were kidnapped and then sold to wealthy families, abused, or—in some instances—murdered. A state investigation into numerous instances of adoption fraud led to the closure of the institution in 1950. Tann died of cancer before the investigation made its findings public.

Tann was born on July 18, 1891, in Philadelphia, Mississippi, to Beulah Isabella (née Yates) and George Clark Tann. She was older than her brother, Rob Roy Tann, by three years. Young Beulah was a school teacher during a time when it was uncommon for women to work outside of the home. Judge Tann would sometimes bring abandoned or neglected children with him, remarking that he would need a minister, school teacher, and doctor to figure out what to do with the children. Its offices were located on the fifth floor of the Goodwyn Building downtown. The society was the largest in the state, and had branches in Jackson, Knoxville, and Chattanooga. While Tennessee law permitted agencies to place children with appropriate applicants, in an effort to ban the selling of children, agencies could charge only for their services.</blockquote>

Alma Walton and Regina Warner both worked for Tann, and made a trip every three weeks with four to six babies in tow: Walton to California and Warner to New York. Notable personalities who used Tann's services included actress Joan Crawford (twin daughters, Cathy and Cynthia were adopted through the agency while daughter Christina Crawford and son Christopher were adopted through other agencies). June Allyson and husband Dick Powell also used the Memphis based home for adopting a child, as did the adoptive parents of professional wrestler Ric Flair. In a 1937 governmental report by Emma Annie Winslow, a prominent American home economist and researcher, she reported that the three homes for unwed mothers in Memphis, in cooperation with the local health department, had committed to keeping mothers with their infants for at least three months before seeking adoption, especially to complete breastfeeding. However, all three homes reported that, in practice, the Tennessee Children's Home would collect the children within weeks due to "court commitment." Winslow also reported that Tann had the practice of collecting children directly from their mothers at the hospital before the mother was even released, some mothers having signed the children over to the orphanage before the child was even born. Tann said she preferred to receive the children early "before they developed thrush or some other infection" in the hospital. Winslow also noted that, during 1933–1934, while there were no maternal deaths between the three homes, there was a large number of infant deaths due to an "epidemic" at Memphis General Hospital. The author noted that improvements in care in the hospital nursery had decreased infant mortality during previous years, and ultimately concluded that the uptick in infant deaths must have come from "non resident" mothers from other areas who gave birth in Memphis. Tann was documented taking children born to unwed mothers at birth, claiming that the newborns required medical care. When the mothers asked about the children, Tann or her accomplices would explain that the babies had died, when they had actually been placed in foster homes or adopted. In some cases, single parents would drop their children off at nursery schools, only to be told that welfare agents had taken the children. In others, children would be temporarily placed in an orphanage because a family was experiencing illness or unemployment, only to find out later that the orphanage had adopted them out or had no record of the children ever being placed. quote box|align=right|width=310px|quote=Tennessee Children's Home Society had been dropped from the Child Welfare League of America because of its repeated failure to have homes of foster parents investigated prior to the placement of children for adoption, because Tennessee Children's Home Society had failed to study the children and their heritage before placing them for adoption, because of the failure of the Society to select proper homes for the children placed for adoption, because the foster parents had been permitted to select the child of their choice rather than placing the children in the home best suited for the child, because the home had engaged in advertising children for adoption and had encouraged hasty placements in disregard of the right to protection from commercial advertising, and because the Society had engaged in interstate placement of children at long distances from the situs of the Society which prevented careful home findings and suitable supervision pending adoption. Tann would identify children as being from homes that could not provide for their care, and Kelley would push the matter through her dockets. Kelley 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. In a letter drafted in 1947, Tann's attorney, Abe Waldauer, said that the prospective adoptive couple had "complete custody and control of a child for one year; may submit the child to any physical or mental examination they wish and take any steps they may desire to ascertain they have a healthy and normal child. If it is not, the Tennessee Children's Home takes it back without question." Bypassing Shelby County Probate Court, most of the adoption cases were handled in the counties of Dyer, Haywood, and Hardeman. He had long been known to take bribes from unlawful establishments (e. g., brothels and gambling halls), a fact which Tann used to her advantage. She enjoyed a lavish lifestyle and was widely respected in the community, counting among her friends prominent families, politicians, and legislators. With no housing facilities, the society held children awaiting placement in public facilities and foster homes. In the 1930s, Memphis had the highest infant mortality rate in the nation, largely due to Tann. In 1943, a wealthy businessman donated the mansion at 1556 Poplar Avenue to the society. The offices and intake rooms were put on the bottom floor, while the nurseries were upstairs. The all female staff wore all white nursing uniforms, despite the fact that they were mostly untrained and even substance abusers. The children were frequently sedated and those who were difficult to place were allowed to die of malnutrition. Tann regularly ignored doctors' recommendations for sick children, denying them care or medicine, which often led to preventable deaths from illnesses such as diarrhea. other children were never accounted for, and the exact number of deceased children remains unknown, with estimates of about 500 deaths due to mistreatment. Public Welfare Commissioner J. O. McMahan accused Tann and her cohorts of receiving as much as $1 million in profits. the state of Tennessee sued Tann's estate for $500,000. The case was settled out of court with her beneficiaries ceding two thirds of her $82,000 estate to the Tennessee Children's Home Society.

Tann is estimated to have stolen over 5,000 children. New York and California vowed to take action, but the children's adoptions were never investigated, and no children were restored. Tann died of uterine cancer three days before the state filed charges against the society, thus escaping prosecution.</blockquote>

In her book, Rural Unwed Mothers: An American Experience, Mazie Hough makes the argument that the implementation of social work standards in Tennessee without providing the needed funding contributed to abuses in the system. The Tennessee Children's Home Society scandal resulted in adoption reform laws in Tennessee in 1951. Tann's custom of creating false birth certificates for adoptees (which she did to hide the origins of the child) had become standard practice nationwide. Prior to the 1920s, adoption was a rare practice in the United States, with the Boston Children's Aid Society placing only five children per year. By contrast, in 1928, Tann placed 206 children with adoptive families. Believing in class distinctions, Tann felt that children should be taken from poor families and placed with, what she called, "people of the higher type." has no connection with Georgia Tann nor the society which she operated.

In 1922, Tann adopted an infant girl; she named her June. In her book about Tann, Barbara Raymond recounted June's daughter Vicci saying, "Mother said Georgia Tann was a cold fish; she gave her material things, but nothing else. I don't know why she bothered to adopt her." While the cohabitation of two financially independent women, referred to as "Boston marriages", had once been socially acceptable, such arrangements had begun to be viewed as suspiciously homosexual. Tann and Atwood Hollinsworth hid the true nature of their relationship. Tann adopted Ann Atwood Hollinsworth on September 15, 1950, aged 59, three days before Governor Gordon Browning of Tennessee filed charges against Tann's home. Tann was buried in her family's plot in Hickory Cemetery. Atwood Hollinsworth was the executor of her estate.

Mommie Dearest; "Joan Crawford['s] Mommie Dearest daughter supposedly came from the Tennessee Children's Home Society". Missing Children: A Mother's Story (1982), was loosely based on the Tennessee scandal. Tann was the subject of aforementioned December 13, 1989, episode of the crime show Unsolved Mysteries. The made for TV film Stolen Babies debuted in 1993. Directed by Kim Moses, it tells the story of a social worker that Moses and her writing partners interviewed, Annie Beales, who was the whistleblower on the Society. Beales is played by Lea Thompson; Tann is played by Mary Tyler Moore, who won an Emmy for her performance. the August 29, 2017, episode of the True Crime Brewery podcast titled "The Baby Thief: The Crimes of Georgia Tann"; the March 15, 2019, episode of the Criminal podcast titled "Baby Snatcher"; and the April 30, 2019, two part episode of the Behind the Bastards podcast titled "The Woman Who Invented Adoption (By Stealing Thousands of Babies)". She is the subject of the 2007 nonfiction book The Baby Thief: The Untold Story of Georgia Tann, the Baby Seller Who Corrupted Adoption, by Barbara Bisantz Raymond. She is also featured in the 2017 novel about the scandal, Before We Were Yours, by Lisa Wingate. In October 2019, Wingate and Judy Christie released the book Before and After: The Incredible RealLife Stories of Orphans Who Survived the Tennessee Children's Home Society. It is a nonfiction companion to Wingate's novel. Tann is featured in the 2019 novel, The Pink Bonnet by Liz Tolsma. She is featured in an episode of Stuff You Should Know released on 25 April 2024 called "The Awful Crimes of Georgia Tann".

In 1990, the Los Angeles Times published the story of Alma Sipple. Her daughter Irma had been taken by Georgia Tann in the spring of 1946 under the pretense of providing medical care; a few days later, however, Tann informed Sipple that her daughter had died of pneumonia and had already been buried. Sipple was devastated by grief, but suspected the child was still alive. Her efforts to find her daughter at the time, however, were fruitless.

PROFILE: Mary Margulis St. Louis Post – Dispatch St. Louis, Mo. : May 10, 1993. p. 1 Section: EVERYDAY MAGAZINE