A Horrendous Thief Who Made Her Millions by Selling Children
By: Vishnu A
Tags: Human Rights, Crime, Humanity, History, Past

A Horrendous Thief Who Made Her Millions by Selling Children

A heart-wrenching tale of innocent lives lost inside the Tennessee Children’s Home Society

Georgia seen along with a toddler in one of the adoption drives organized to woo wealthy families; Source: Pic

For more than two decades, spanning from 1924 to 1950, Georgia Tann, the director of the Tennessee Children’s Home Society, in Memphis, was applauded and showered with praises pouring in from all across the United States for her unrelenting philanthropic works. She was credited with helping thousands of orphans find a life in new homes at a time when adoption was considered to be taboo. However, the state agencies’ inquiry unraveled a sinister plot of human trafficking in action, devised and driven by Georgia Tann and her close associate and lesbian partner Anne Atwood.

The origins of Georgia Tann

An undated image of Georgia Tann; Source: Pic

Georgia Tann was born in 1891 to George Tann, a district court judge, and house maker Beulah Yates. She belonged to quite a well-to-do family who often donated in cash and kind to the less fortunate and needy.

As a young girl, Georgia aspired to take up law as a career. However, her dreams were cut short when her father, Judge George, asserted that women were unfit to make logical arguments in the court. He instead forced her to earn a major in Music. Consequently, in 1913, she graduated from Martha Washington College with a degree in Music. Later on, she cleared the bar examination and joined Columbia University to study social work for a period of two summers.

In 1922, she got her first job at the Mississippi Children’s Home Society. Nevertheless, she got fired for being impatient and treating the orphans poorly. Subsequently, she packed up and moved to Memphis, Tennessee. Thanks to her father’s political connections, she became the Executive director at the Tennessee Children’s Home Society’s Shelby division.

The Child Hunt commences

Tennessee Children’s Home Society, Memphis, the place where it all began; Source: Benjamin Hooks Library Archives

After assuming power as the executive director at the Tennessee Children’s Home Society, in Memphis, Georgia, felt quite troubled by the fact that there were very few orphans at the home. She decided to tackle this matter by abducting children from poorer neighborhoods. A team of rogue social workers, police officers, and nurses was constituted to prey on unattended children from pre-schools, hospitals, playgrounds, and even churches. These children would be lured into conversations before being offered a ride in a car, after which they would never see their families again. Even though a few families were able to trace their kids, the rogue police officers would often silence them with dire repercussions.

A representational image of a maternity ward in the late 90s; Source: Pic

The team would also keep track of all the babies being born in nearby hospitals. If the baby belonged to a single mother, a widow, a low-income family, or was the result of an unplanned pregnancy, the parents would be approached and offered plans to secure their child’s bright future by getting them adopted into wealthy families. But in reality, most of the children would end up in the children’s home, thereby increasing its occupancy, and in the process, creating more orphans than there were earlier.

A 1951 report showed that children staying at the Tennessee Children’s Home Society were drugged to keep them calm. Source: Pic

Once the children reached the orphanage, they would be drugged with sedatives so that they remained calm and consumed less food. Furthermore, they were stripped of all their past details from the national registry using political support. All their details, including birth certificates, were destroyed, making them look like legitimate orphans on paper. If any family visited the orphanage to check on the whereabouts of their child, they would be narrated some bogus tale stating that their child had passed away or had been adopted by someone from a far-off place.

Georgia becomes a philanthropist

Actress Joan Crawford along with her adopted children. On the left: Christopher, Cindy, Cathy, and Christina; Source: Pic

It was not long before leading tabloids ran stories praising Georgia for working tirelessly to ensure that no orphan was left out on the streets to fend for themselves. The exaggerated coverage by the press helped her garner loads of respect and monetary support from the elites.

The media coverage also aided Georgia Tann in becoming influential to such an extent that she received a personal invitation from President Truman for his inauguration. The First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt would often seek her counsel regarding child welfare policies.

Massive adoption drives attracting wealthy families was a trend set by the Tennessee Children’s Home Society; Source: Pic

What the public didn’t know was that Georgia was selling children to her wealthy customers like actors, politicians, and business people behind all the media coverage and heartfelt accolades pouring in. While some of her customers were genuinely interested in adopting, a large majority were pedophile men who were interested in satisfying their insane sexual fantasies. She would often order girls in their early teens to sit on the laps of rich visitors and address them as “daddy” in order to entertain them.

We cannot say no to this innocent child even today; Source: Pic

To further boost up her business, she began publishing ads targeting prospective parents into adopting children. In all these ads, she portrayed herself as a kind and selfless woman trying to bring about change in society. However, in reality, she and her associates were wreaking the lives and families of hundreds of individuals.

It is estimated that she fixed prices for each child as high as $14,000 in today’s dollars. During the course of her child trading business, she sold more than 5000 abducted children to wealthy families across the United States. Making things worse, more than 500 children lost their lives due to unhygienic sanitary conditions prevailing in the orphanage.

The horrendous crime falls apart

The memorial at the Elmwood Cemetery honors Tann’s victims. It reads, in part: “Their final resting place unknown. Their final peace a blessing.”; Source: Pic

For nearly thirty years, Georgia Tann went about running her business of selling children without facing any repercussions. However, in 1950 following a series of allegations by legitimate social workers, police officers, and parents. The governor of Tennessee ordered a thorough investigation. This time her rogue police officers could not save her as it was out of their jurisdiction.

The investigative team found glaring loopholes in the documentation. Several questions were raised which did not get any substantial answers. With this, the investigators had just opened out Georgia’s can of worms. The investigation had concluded that Georgia and her associates were guilty of terrible crimes. Following this, the governor ordered the doors of the Tennessee Children’s Home Society to shut down permanently. All the children were moved out to a state-run orphanage. However, the ironic part is that victims suffered unjustifiably because of the mastermind and her co-conspirators who never faced any implications for their actions.

A newspaper article dated November 11, 1950, carrying news about the falsification of records by Georgia; Source: Pic

Interestingly, three days before the official release of the investigation’s disastrous findings, Georgia Tann passed away in her sleep due to uterine cancer. Effectively it means that she was never confronted for her terrible acts. All her associates, too, walked free due to a lack of evidence. They had made sure that none of the trade deals left any paper trail that could be used as evidence. In the immediate aftermath of this situation was the implementation of strict adoption laws all across America.

It wasn’t until 1995 that the state ruled a verdict favoring the children who had been forced into the adoption racket run by Georgia Tann. Following the court’s ruling, they were issued new birth certificates, compensation, and access to any of the adoption records remaining with the government. The immeasurable pain experienced by the terrified children who lost all contact with their parents, family, and friends can never be justified with any compensation or indemnification.