Georgia Tann | Women's Work | 1

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It's a stormy day in 1948 at the Memphis Municipal Airport.

Gertrude Gibbs and her friend Margaret Fowler are waiting for a flight to Nashville.

They're signed up to attend a conference on margarine.

Both women are active community organizers and are hoping to get the state tax on margarine removed to make groceries more affordable for families.

But they won't be able to make their point to lawmakers in Nashville if their flight never takes off.

Through the windows, Gertrude can see lightning flash and wind rocks the smaller planes parked at the gates.

Gertrude shakes her head.

It's not looking good.

But then her friend nudges her and points across the terminal to where a woman in her 20s is sitting at a different gate and rocking a baby carriage back and forth.

Even from across the room, Gertrude can see that there are two tiny infants in the carriage, and that's not something she can resist.

Standing, she walks over to the nurse.

Once she's close enough, Gertrude crouches to take a look at the babies.

They're sweet little things.

One of them looks only a week old or so at the most.

The other can't be much older than that, maybe a month.

When Gertrude asks, the nurse tells her that the children are actually twins and that they're headed to New York where they'll be adopted.

That strikes Gertrude as odd.

As a woman with a particular interest in the plight of orphans, she spent a lot of time around young children, and she can tell that these two aren't twins.

What's more, it seems strange that a nurse would be bringing children across the country instead of parents traveling to meet their new son or daughter.

Still, Gertrude shakes off the feeling.

The nurse seems kind enough, and the children don't look ill-treated.

She's about to bid the nurse a safe journey when an announcement comes over the loudspeaker.

The weather has forced the flight to New York to be delayed by four hours.

The nurse sighs and leans forward to tuck the baby's blankets tighter around them.

It's cold in the airport, and another four hours in here will make the journey that much more tiring for all of them.

Gertrude fishes in her purse and pulls out a coin for the nurse, tells her to call a taxi and take the children somewhere warm for the next few hours.

Gertrude watches as the nurse walks to a bank of payphones and places a call.

A minute or two later, she's back to say that a car will be here for them soon, and thanks Gertrude for the suggestion and the coin.

Gertrude returns to Margaret to share the story of the sweet little babies and the big journey they're about to take.

But as the women wonder what kind of family the children will end up with in New York, they see the nurse go outside to meet her taxi.

Only she doesn't get into a regular cab.

A black limousine pulls up to the curb, and a chauffeur jumps out to help the nurse into the car with the babies.

Intrigued and confused, Gertrude gets up to take a closer look.

Something about the situation just doesn't sit right with her, so she takes out a small notepad and writes down the license plate number of the limousine before it drives away.

It's probably nothing, she thinks, but she'd like to follow it up all the same.

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In the United States today, one out of every 25 families have an adopted child, with an average of some 115,000 children adopted every year.

Experts estimate that there are between 1 and 2 million couples waiting to adopt at any one time.

Absent any context, those numbers might not hold a lot of meaning.

But 100 years ago, adoption was such a rare occurrence that no one thought to even keep an official count.

Orphanages in populous cities like New York or Boston might successfully place 5 or 6 children with families each year.

But for the most part, children who found themselves in the system seldom found their way back out.

One woman changed all that though.

Georgia Tann revolutionized the adoption industry in America, making the concept attractive to thousands of families.

The thing is, Georgia wasn't helping children find loving homes out of the goodness of her heart.

She was doing it because she liked two things, money and power.

And most of the time, Georgia didn't care if she placed children in loving homes.

She only cared that the adoptive parents had a healthy bank balance.

What's more, plenty of the children Georgia adopted out weren't orphans.

Because in many cases, Georgia didn't wait for a child to need a new home.

She'd just see them with parents she didn't think were good enough.

When that happened, she'd reach out and take them.

And for 20 years, there was nothing anyone could do to stop her.

This is episode 1 in a 4-part series on Georgia Tann, Women's Work.

Georgia Tann is young when she first notices the children.

Later, she won't recall how old she was at the exact moment, but she knows it's before 1900, so she's 8, maybe 9, and sitting in a corner of her father's courtroom.

George Tann is a 2nd Chancery District Court Judge here in Mississippi.

That means he deals with a lot of domestic issues, divorce, wills, custody hearings, and adoptions.

With no government agency to take care of them, Judge Tann is responsible for the fates of a lot of young children in the community.

Young Georgia watches her father sitting high above everyone else in the room.

Before him sit two young girls, both younger than 5.

They're clinging to each other, and they look afraid.

Georgia doesn't think her father is a frightening man, but he certainly looks intimidating with his robes and gavel.

And it's clear to Georgia that this pair of sisters is from a different class than her family.

With their ragged dresses and dirty shoes, it's easy to see that they're some of the town's poorest residents.

Now, with one parent in jail and the other dead, they're even worse off.

So if she thinks about it, it makes sense why they're scared.

Judge Tann calls one of the lawyers forward to talk to him.

From her seat in the back of the courtroom, Georgia can't hear what her father's saying, but she can guess.

He's told her about the workhouses children get sent to when they don't have parents.

They sound awful.

The asylums she's heard about sound even worse.

Luckily for them, neither of these little girls seems like they need to be in a sanitarium.

They've been quiet and still for the entire time they've been here.

And she knows her father doesn't like sending kids to workhouses, not if he can help it.

So she wonders what the solution is.

Looking at them with their blonde hair and bright eyes, Georgia supposes the sisters would be good children for someone who wanted them.

But no one's going to be adopting the girls today.

The best Judge Tann can do is put them in a boarding house.

It's a shame, Georgia thinks, as she watches the girls be led from the courtroom, that such pretty children should go to waste.

The Tanns are a prominent family in their hometown.

Georgia's mother, Bula, can claim roots that go all the way back to frontier times, which is as close to royalty as anyone can get in Hickory, Mississippi.

But it's Judge Tann, with his powerful, high-profile job, who really defines the family's standing.

Georgia inherits personality traits from both of her parents, but in the end, it's her father she'll take after most, even if they don't always see eye to eye.

As a little girl, Georgia is the kind of kid who wants to be outside running around.

But to her parents, that's not becoming of a young lady.

So Judge Tann sits his daughter in front of the piano and insists she practice every day.

One day she'll be a concert pianist, then she'll thank him.

Georgia doesn't like the piano though.

She'd rather do just about anything else.

As she grows up, she'll look for other hobbies to occupy her time so that she doesn't have to play music.

And the thing that holds her attention the longest is directly inspired by her father's work.

Judge Tann isn't overly fond of children, but he takes his responsibility for them very seriously.

There aren't many orphanages to take care of kids who've lost their parents, and Judge Tann doesn't like the other usual options, workhouses and asylums.

So he tries hard to place children in local boarding homes, or with the incredibly rare family willing to adopt.

Sometimes he even brings kids home to stay with the Tanns while he works to find a long-term solution.

Nothing about the situation is ideal, and Judge Tann complains about it to his daughter often.

He tells her that he's not qualified to be making decisions about these children's lives, and resents that it falls on his shoulders alone.

But Judge Tann always meets the challenge head on, which is what's earned him so much respect from his neighbors.

Everyone in the community knows to call Judge Tann when there's a child without a home, or someone to take care of it, even when he's off duty.

One night, when George is a young teenager, a phone call comes in to the Tann homestead.

It's the sheriff's deputy, and he's got a hell of a story.

Earlier that day, a woman was arrested for being a morphine user.

Given that morphine's an over-the-counter drug that's not entirely unheard of, and the woman who's a single mother was sent to an asylum for the time being, police officers then went to her home to round up her children for institutionalization too.

Everyone thought that was the end of it, but now the effects of the morphine have worn off and the woman's frantic.

She's screaming about a baby, but no one's picked up a baby at the woman's house.

So the deputy asked could Judge Tann drive to the woman's home and see if there really is an infant out there.

Judge Tann isn't happy about having to leave his house in the middle of the night, but Georgia seems eager to go, so they all bundle into the family car and drive off into the dark.

The house in question is in the country, away from civilization, and when they arrive, the place is as ramshackle as Georgia expected.

More hut than house.

In her mind, anyone of good breeding wouldn't need to live in a place like this.

They wouldn't be a drug user.

They wouldn't be an unmarried mother.

There's not really much of the house to explore, not compared to the large Tann homestead.

Still, Georgia and her parents get to work searching, and after a few moments, they hear it, the unmistakable sounds of a baby crying.

It's Georgia who sees the infant first, half covered in a pile of blankets and clothes, pink-faced from screaming and hungry after hours alone, the child isn't easy to settle.

But Georgia picks it up and carries it outside.

That night, Georgia will take the infant home and care for him herself until Judge Tann finds an orphanage that will take all of the women's children.

It's the first time Georgia gets personally involved in the life of a forgotten child, but it's far from the last.

Whether it's because of the incident with the baby or just so she has something to do, Georgia takes a growing interest in charity as she enters her teenage years.

It's the kind of do-gooding where she pays unexpected visits to poor families in Hickory.

Whether Georgia's doing any measurable good for these people isn't clear.

Georgia comes from a respected middle-class family and brings with her a set of values and practices that aren't useful for people experiencing poverty.

She wants them to have tidy homes and quiet, well-behaved children, but what these people really need are well-paying jobs and an education.

Georgia's charity work is typical of a young woman of her age and class, but in most other ways, Georgia Tann is one of a kind.

For starters, she doesn't like to wear dresses and skirts.

If she can help it, she prefers to wear flannel shirts and trousers.

She wears her hair pulled tightly back off her face and has no interest in makeup.

Like her parents, she's got a solid build and broad shoulders, and overall, people say Georgia gives off a masculine energy, which isn't all that common for the time.

She's also not interested in marriage.

At least, not the institution as it exists in the early 20th century.

That's because Georgia is something that her society doesn't recognize or accept.

She's queer and chafes at the ideas of womanhood that are presented to her.

So, instead of thinking about her future prospects, Georgia fixates on the children who cross her path.

She spends her summer vacations volunteering at an orphanage about 20 miles away, but soon she'll take a particular interest in some children much closer to home.

It's 1906, and 15-year-old Georgia is spending time in her father's courtroom again.

She likes watching him work and enjoys learning the intricacies of the law.

But today, she's distracted.

There are two children sitting in the far corner of the room, seemingly alone.

The boy looks like he's about five, and the girl can't be older than three.

She's still sucking her thumb.

Georgia tries to ignore them and pay attention to what's going on at the front of the room, but she can't stop herself.

In between cases, Georgia approaches her father and asks him about the youngsters.

He explains that he's just placed them in the protection of a local children's charity and that he's waiting for a representative to pick them up.

Hearing this, Georgia hurries to the back corner where the siblings are holding hands, their watery eyes darting around the room.

Up close, she can see that they're both attractive little things, with sweet faces and charming, soft curls.

Surely, she thinks someone in town would want children who look like this.

When she was younger, there wasn't anything Georgia could do about the problem.

But she's listened to her father's frustrated rants for years, and now she's determined to do something useful.

It's an idea she can't get out of her head, and so over the next few days, Georgia starts knocking on doors of the town's wealthier residents to see if anyone can be tempted to adopt the children.

Even as a teenager, Georgia's got a commanding nature and a gift for convincing people to see things her way.

So about three weeks after she's spotted the children in court, Georgia's found a respectable couple to adopt them.

It's a surprising and impressive outcome.

Adoption isn't a popular concept, and the fact that Georgia's convinced people to welcome not one but two orphan children into their home is a remarkable sign of things to come.

But that's not necessarily something to celebrate.

Georgia Tann's childhood has imbued her with ambitions and a fierce, if twisted, sense of right and wrong.

It's taught her skills of persuasion and shown her how those less fortunate live.

In another person, that combination might have created someone capable of making a real positive difference in the world.

In Georgia Tann, though, it creates a monster.

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It's 1908, and Georgia Tann is standing in her father's office.

The dull gleam of the dark wood paneling and the musty smell of books are as familiar to Georgia as her bedroom at home.

Until just a moment ago, she was sitting peacefully at the side of the desk, with one of those many books open before her.

Now, though, she's on her feet, her voice getting louder as she argues with Judge Tann.

At 17, Georgia's been studying her father's law books for years and sitting in his courtroom watching him for as long as she can remember.

He's encouraged her interest in the law, until now.

She's told him that she wants to take the bar exam and become a lawyer.

He's told her that she can't.

The law, he says, isn't a field for women, and Georgia takes issue with that.

Her ambitions are bigger than her father's expectations, and she doesn't want to be held back by him or anyone else.

It's the piano all over again, only much bigger.

She's seen how much power her father wields, the respect he commands in the community.

She wants that, and more.

But Judge Tann holds firm.

No daughter of his will be a lawyer.

Eyes blazing and furious, Georgia throws her book down and storms out of the office, the door slamming shut behind her.

She won't let her father limit her potential.

She'll be more than the small, fragile thing he wants her to be.

When she graduates from high school, Georgia won't go into the law like she wants to.

But she does improve her prospects by enrolling at Martha Washington College in Virginia.

It's a school for women, so there's no sprawling campus, just a large brick mansion that was once the home of an army general, then a civil war hospital.

Now it's where young women like Georgia can study a selection of subjects to enrich their minds, even if their career options remain relatively limited.

When Georgia graduates in 1913, there are essentially two jobs she can choose from, teaching and social work.

And despite her experiences working with poor families in her community, at first, Georgia veers towards education.

She heads back to Mississippi, where she teaches at a school in Columbus.

But it doesn't last.

She doesn't have the patience to deal with school-age children day in and day out.

So she returns to her roots and takes a job at the newly formed Mississippi Children's Home Finding Society.

It's the first state-run orphanage in Mississippi, and Georgia's duties are mostly confined to finding foster homes for the children.

Adoption as a means of completing a family still isn't a popular idea in America.

But there are families willing to take in kids for other reasons.

Foster children can make great servants for households who can't afford to hire help.

And as despicable as that idea is, many social workers figure it's a better option than sending orphans to workhouses or asylums, which are just about the bleakest places a child can end up.

Unfortunately for the children in question, there's no regulation of the child welfare system.

So no one can step in to prevent this kind of exploitation or even provide the oversight that might give social workers more viable options.

That leaves people like Georgia free to make whatever judgments they think are best.

For her, it's a fairly simple set of metrics that call back to what she learned as a child.

People with money are good.

People without are bad.

And warped as those ethics are, Georgia does well in her career.

By 1920, she's 29 years old and running one of the home-finding societies orphanages in Jackson.

It's here that she reconnects with someone from her past.

Anne Atwood is eight years younger than Georgia, but they grew up around each other because their parents were good friends.

Now, they're grown women with more in common than they ever realized.

For starters, they're both snobs who think highly of themselves and considerably less of everyone else.

More importantly, though, they're both queer and after some brief workplace flirtation, they fall into a serious relationship.

Before long, the pair are living together, but that doesn't raise many eyebrows around town.

Young women are often thought not to hold any sexual desires of their own, so they're encouraged to hold hands, kiss and even share beds with their close friends as a practice for when they one day marry.

Taking advantage of this, many gay women carry on lasting same-sex relationships in almost plain view.

Georgia and Ann are no exception.

They tell people that they're his closest siblings and even call each other sister in public.

Eventually, Georgia tells people that her parents adopted Ann as a child and that they grew up under the same roof.

It's not true, but it's a believable enough explanation for why they're constant companions.

Finding a partner isn't the only way that Georgia expands her family, though.

In 1922, she spots a pretty infant at one of the orphanages she works with.

Deciding that she'd like to keep the girl for herself, Georgia takes her home and names her June.

Together, she and Ann raise June as their own.

But because unmarried women aren't technically allowed to adopt, Georgia tells people that her parents adopted June.

So that makes her Georgia's sister, just like Ann.

As June gets older, she's told to call Georgia's sissy to keep up the charade.

But June isn't the only child that Georgia finds a new home for.

Her personal goal has become to place as many needy children with well-to-do families as she possibly can, even if they're not actually orphans.

And she'll do it by any means necessary.

Around the same time that Georgia adopts June, she meets a young widow named Rose Harvey.

Rose has several young children she's raising all alone.

And if that weren't hard enough, she's also pregnant.

Something about that scenario doesn't sit well with Georgia, and she decides that it's her duty to do something about it.

So one spring afternoon, she drives to Rose's home in Jasper County, not far from Georgia's home in Hickory.

The young mother is taking a nap when Georgia arrives, which is perfect for what Georgia has in mind.

As quietly as she can, she prowls around the perimeter of the house until she finds an open window.

Through it, she can see a little boy playing on the floor.

He's got thick, dark hair and striking brown eyes, and is just what Georgia's looking for.

She calls out softly to the toddler, drawing him closer to the window.

When he's within arm's reach, she lifts him up and out of the house.

Georgia's long gone before Rose even wakes up.

When the mother realizes that one of her children is missing, she's frantic.

It's every parent's worst nightmare.

Eventually, though, she learns what's happened, when she's notified that her parental rights over her son have been terminated.

Georgia had taken the two-year-old straight to Judge Tann and had him sign papers declaring Rose an unfit mother who abandoned her son.

After that, there's very little Rose can do.

Meanwhile, Georgia places the little boy with a couple who are eager to have a baby.

Delighted with the child, the new adoptive father tells Georgia that his brother is also interested in adopting.

Hearing that, Georgia knows just what to do.

Only a couple of weeks after she kidnapped the little boy with dark hair, Georgia drives back to Rose Harvey's house.

She knows that there are other children just like the first who make her clients happy.

When she arrives this time, she's more careful.

She knows that Rose might be more vigilant with her kids.

But it only takes her a few minutes to spot another toddler playing alone in the Harvey's yard.

Seeing that is all the proof Georgia needs that Rose isn't fit to be a mother.

If she were, she'd have eyes on her kids at all times.

With that, Georgia picks up another of Rose's children and drives off with him.

Once again, she drives straight to her father's courthouse and waits for him in his office.

Once again, she explains to Judge Tann that she's found a child whose mother isn't a fit parent, who's effectively abandoned him.

That's all the judge needs to hear.

He has the appropriate paperwork drawn up, and before Rose can do anything to stop it, another of her children has been adopted by a family she's never met.

Rose Harvey sues to regain custody of her stolen children.

But since Judge Tann already terminated her parental rights, it's a fight she doesn't win.

Conversely, Georgia's discovered a winning formula, one with nothing but positives.

For starters, she gets to bask in the satisfaction of having put two poor children in wealthy homes.

And then she revels in the adoration the adoptive parents heap on her when she brings Rose's children to them.

It feels like the kind of respect her father enjoys in the community.

But although Georgia's feeling pleased with herself, not all of her neighbors in Hickory are convinced she did the right thing.

In the months following the incident with Rose, there's a growing swell of animosity directed at Georgia.

It's possible that it's not entirely to do with the stolen children.

Georgia's arrogant and condescending towards most people and her disregard for the gendered expectations of her appearance and living arrangements might be rubbing people the wrong way.

Whatever the driving force behind it, it's clear that Georgia isn't welcome in Hickory anymore.

Not that she's all that bothered.

Her hometown has been feeling claustrophobic lately anyway, and she knows that if she's going to earn the kind of clout she really wants, she can't do it in a small town like Hickory.

What she really needs is to be in a big city.

And as luck would have it, the Tennessee Children's Home Society has both a job opening and a branch in Memphis.

So in July of 1924, Georgia pulls up stakes and heads for the city.

It's time to get to work.

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It's August of 1924, and Georgia Tann is in the office of a Memphis businessman.

Now 33, Georgia looks polished and presentable.

She's wearing her hair short these days and is dressed in a crisp white blouse and a black skirt.

It's not necessarily ladylike, but that might be to her advantage right now.

She's trying to convince the man sitting across from her to make a large donation to the Tennessee Children's Home Society.

Georgia's only been in Memphis for a month or so, but she's hit the ground running.

As the head of the Society's new aid division, she's in charge of raising funds and awareness for their work in the community.

Georgia's determined to convince locals of the benefits of adoption.

To that end, she explains to the business owner that finding suitable homes for orphans doesn't just help the child in question have a better life.

It helps relieve the strain on taxpayers.

While orphans are wards of the state, they're costing everyday citizens money, Georgia says.

But everyone that's taken into a respectable home is one less mouth to feed.

And that's an argument that hits just the right note with the businessman, because Memphis is a city that's seen plenty of hardships in recent decades.

In the latter half of the 19th century, Memphis was ravaged by several waves of yellow fever.

The illness decimated the city's population, and the few wealthy residents who survived fled, leaving a town full of lower income families and newcomers from more rural areas.

That means that by the time Georgia arrives in the city, there are plenty of parents struggling to care for their children.

In her eyes, those struggling parents ought to be ashamed of themselves.

Lucky for Memphis, now there are people like her looking out for these neglected kids.

And lucky for Georgia, her new home is ruled by a politician with a disposition that matches her own.

Edward Boss Crump was elected mayor of Memphis in 1910, after promising that he'd rid the city of its criminals.

Once he took office, though, he simply ordered gangsters and sex workers to pay a weekly $50 fee and let them carry on.

That money contributed to a slush fund that paid for elections and for improvements for the city.

Some of it also went into Crump's pockets.

By 1915, Crump had resigned as mayor in favor of the new position of county trustee.

But that didn't diminish his power.

He named his own successor and only strengthened his grip on the city.

Since then, he's been known to fire city employees who don't tithe enough of their earnings to the slush fund.

And he even got rid of a sheriff who refused to tamper with a jury.

Crump's willingness to accept payments and his success as a pseudo-autocrat for Memphis makes for a thoroughly corrupt city.

And that suits Georgia just fine.

Despite the relatively hospitable environment Georgia finds in her new home, she still faces an uphill battle.

Across the country, adoption rates are incredibly low.

Chief among the reasons for that is the pseudoscience of eugenics, which has been growing in popularity since the end of World War I.

Not only do eugenicists espouse racist ideals of purity and breeding, they've also stoked fears about how parentless children will grow up.

Single mothers are looked down on and considered unfit genetically.

After all, if they weren't, surely someone would have married them.

So it stands to reason that any children such women put up for adoption will inherit a litany of undesirable problems.

It's a lot of prejudice to overcome, but Georgia's not afraid of a fight.

So she rolls up her sleeves and gets to work, changing minds throughout Memphis.

She works long hours, going door to door, talking about the benefits of adoption.

She promotes an alternative to the idea that adoptees will be saddled with unwanted personality traits.

She tells people that orphans are blank slates.

Children who will become whoever and whatever an adoptive parent might hope for them.

And while that's an argument that some people find compelling, Georgia doesn't technically have any authority over adoptions in Memphis.

That's the purview of a group called the Children's Bureau, while the TCHS is responsible for foster care.

But Georgia doesn't want it that way.

So she changes the world to suit herself.

Without bothering to ask anyone for permission, she starts looking for families to take the Bureau's wards.

With her unyielding nature and cold demeanor, no one stands up to Georgia or tries to enforce the law that states all adoption agencies need a license.

Within a year of arriving in Memphis, Georgia has ensured the TCHS is responsible for all adoptions in the city.

During the first three months of 1925, the society places 71 children in homes, a number impressive enough to warrant a write-up in the local papers.

Georgia has found homes for so many children because she's not only a tireless and incredibly capable salesperson, she's a shrewd manipulator to boot.

One of her favorite tactics is to place especially beautiful babies in baskets she's decorated with ribbons and lace.

Then she brings the little bundles to offices of the city's social workers, who are mostly women.

She tells them that she's found the perfect baby just for them and hands over the basket there and then.

Few people turn down the offer, not realizing they've swallowed a hook along with the bait.

Because although they don't know it yet, the women who accept the soft, cooing infants are now beholden to Georgia.

They're in her power, and Georgia will expect them to do as they're told.

If they refuse or demur, she'll answer with thinly veiled threats.

She'll mention the child's birth parents, or suggest that anything that makes her look bad could implicate anyone associated with her and threaten any adoption she's arranged.

In some cases, she just tells people she'll repossess their child.

She's weaving a tangled web where the right people feel like they owe Georgia for something precious.

And as Georgia amasses more control over adoptions in Memphis, the people in her orbit will slowly realize that this is Georgia Tann's world now, and they're all just living in it.

From Airship, this is episode one in our series on Georgia Tann.

On the next episode, Georgia comes up with an ingenious and twisted method for getting rid of her excess stock of babies.

We use many different sources while preparing this episode.

A couple we can recommend are The Baby Thief by Barbara Raymond and Babies for Sale, The Tennessee Children's Adoption Scandal by Linda T.

Austin.

This episode may contain reenactments or dramatized details.

And while in some cases we can't know exactly what happened, all of our dramatizations are based on historical research.

American Criminal is hosted, edited and produced by me, Jeremy Schwartz.

Audio Editing by Mohamed Shazid.

Sound Design by Matthew Filler.

Music by Thrumm.

This episode is written and researched by Joel Callan.

Managing Producer Emily Burke.

Executive Producers are Joel Callan, William Simpson and Lindsay Graham for Airship.