Biologically Yours: The Edna Gladney Adoption Center
1983
Gelatin Silver Prints
Series of 20
The Edna Gladney Home is an adoption center and home for young unmarried mothers in Fort Worth, Texas.
The young women residents are hiding out at Gladney because they are too young to care for a child, but more often, they are doing as they are told by their parents. The young women assume secret hospital names, continue going to school, eat pizza, go to church, make friends, receive counseling and give birth on the Gladney campus. The majority of Gladney residents place their babies for adoption, return to their lives back home with flat stomachs and deeply held memories and feelings.
I proposed the idea to Life Magazine and was sent on assignment. Because of the secrecy, it was very special to get permission to photograph.
I used my own personal birth mother experience as the calling card to gain entrance. The photo essay titled, "Babies Having Babies" was featured in the December, 1983 issue of Life Magazine.