As adoption has evolved from a secretive process with sealed records to a more open, flexible system sensitive to the needs of both birthparents and adoptive parents, the principals involved have changed, too. Today, many of the Gladney birth mothers are older, and far fewer live on the campus in Fort Worth before giving birth. The babies are much more likely to be from other countries, such as China, Guatemala or Russia, to be older, of mixed-race heritage, or to have special needs. And the adoptive parents now include older people and single parents as well as younger couples. There is more flexibility.
Adoption is more open-ended.
With roots in the orphan-train movement, which brought abandoned children and orphans west from large cities like New York and Philadelphia in the late 1800s, primarily to work on farms and ranches, Gladney began as the Texas Children's Home and Aid Society. It was formally chartered in 1896 and incorporated in 1904. By the early 1920s, the Texas Children's Home and Aid Society was the leading child-placing organization in the state. Services were expanded in 1949 to provide a place for expectant mothers to live and get good medical care. The agency was renamed the Edna Gladney Home in 1950 in honor of the woman who headed it from 1927 to 1960, personally watching over the adoption of more than 10,000 babies.