International Adoption and Anglo-American Internationalism, c.1918–1925*
Journal: Past & Present
Year: 2017

In January 1920, Admiral Newton McCully landed in New York after a three-year diplomatic tour of Bolshevik Russia. He was greeted by cheering crowds waving silk handkerchiefs and women clamouring to kiss him on both cheeks. Reporters crowded around to catch a glimpse of the ‘man of the hour’ and the reason for his new heroic status: the four boys and three girls, ranging in age from two years to twelve, that he had plucked from impoverished orphanages in the Crimea and brought to America. Knowin