“BABY Farming”: Infanticide for profit

Each historical era spawns its own peculiar types of
crime, from piracy and slave trading to the modern age
of “wilding” and computer “hackers.” The occupation
known as “baby farming” was a product of the Victorian
era, when sex was equivalent to sin and illegitimate
birth meant lifelong shame for mother and child alike.
In that repressive atmosphere, the “baby farmer”—usually
a woman—was prepared to help an unwed mother
through her time of trial . . . but only for a price.
In most cases, the “farmer” provided room and
board during a mother’s confinement, allowing embarrassed
families to tell the neighbors that their daughter
had gone “to study abroad” or “stay with relatives.”
Facilities ranged from humble country cottages to the
likes of LILA YOUNG’s spacious Ideal Maternity Home,
where hundreds of infants were born between 1925 and
1947. Unwed mothers went home with their reputations
and consciences intact, secure in the knowledge
that their babies would be placed in good homes
through black-market adoptions.
It was a no-lose proposition for the “baby farmer,”
paid by those who left a child and once again by those
who came to pick one up. If certain laws were broken
in the process, it was all the better reason for increasing
the adoption fees. Most unwed mothers and adoptive
parents doubtless viewed the “baby farmer’s”
occupation as a valuable public service, never mind
prevailing law.