The Girl in the Shadows

For many people, adoption is a short story: a woman relinquishes her parental rights, the child goes to another family, and that's the end of it. Except the story never really ends there but continues to affect everyone involved for all the years to come.

Others' reluctance to talk about such a private matter can be infuriating for adoptees, adopted parents, and birth parents who hope for some form of reconciliation. Their search for the truth can run into powerful roadblocks. In many states, adoptees are even denied access to their original birth certificates.

Driven by her personal story of love and loss, Susan E. Anthony advocated for adoptee birth certificate access and supported many birth parents as they started on the road toward reunion.

Susan's devotion to this cause was rooted in her own search for Emily, a daughter she put up for adoption in a time when such things were kept secret. Her remarkable search for the truth behind her daughter's adoption and life is one you have to read to believe. In The Girl in the Shadows , Susan gives voice both to the many unwed mothers silenced by society and to their lost children.