"Phony Mothers" and Border-Crossing Adoptions: The Montreal-to-New York Black Market in Babies in the 1950s

Abstract

There were, in fact, a series of independent but nonetheless highly organized baby rings in Montreal. The rings had their own maternity board- ing houses where children were born and utilized a series of baby depots where children were housed while they awaited parents. Spotters trolled the city for pregnant women, and contacts or legmen approached pregnant women who seemed in need of help. Potential adoptive parents heard about the baby rings through word of mouth, or through salesmen who worked in New York City apartment blocks. Lawyers helped parents secure docu- ments (false birth registrations and/or fraudulently obtained adoption court orders) which could then be used to obtain Canadian passports and U.S. entry visas for the children. In some cases, pregnant women were sent to U.S. cities to give birth, or newborn children were simply smuggled across the border by couriers with alleged connections to organized crime. 3 The Montreal-to-New York baby black market was the most sensational episode in a longer history of cross-border adoption between Canada and the United States in the mid-twentieth century. Between 1930 and 1975, several thousand Canadian-born children were adopted by families in the United States. Most of these children were very young infants, and most were the children of unwed mothers. The majority of the children were white, but the border-crossing group also included hundreds of First Nations and Metis children placed in the United States. 4 While many of the Canada-to-U.S. adoptions were completely legal, some were clearly illegal, and many others were highly questionable in terms of American