"The Girls Who Went Away" Author Speaking at Penn State Behrend November 4, 2010

Ann Fessler, author of The Girls Who Went Away, will speak at Penn State Erie, The Behrend College, on Thursday, Nov. 4.

Fessler’s multimedia presentation will be held at 7 p.m. in Reed Auditorium, located on the second floor of the college’s Reed Union Building. It is free and open to the public.

The Girls Who Went Away is a glimpse into the wrenching reality of the hundreds of thousands of young women who gave their newborn children up for adoption in the 1950s and 60s. The women it profiles recount the legacy of shame and guilt once attached to teen and unmarried parenting; many were either hidden inside their homes until they gave birth (scurrying away every time the doorbell rang), or forcibly taken to a charitable home that sometimes treated them poorly or coerced them into surrendering their infant.

In 2002, Fessler, a professor of photography at Rhode Island College of Design and herself the daughter of a teenager who gave her up for adoption, traveled the county to interview women willing to speak publicly about why they relinquished their children. In researching archival records and the political and social climate of the time, she uncovered a story of three decades of women who, under enormous social and family pressure, had no other options. The story of Fessler’s own search for her birth mother begins and ends the book; she’s also working on a companion film, clips from which she will show during her Penn State Behrend presentation.

“This is a hidden, and deliberately forgotten, piece of American history,” says Dr. Sarah Whitney, director of the Women’s Studies program at Penn State Behrend. “When I have students read essays from The Girls Who Went Away, they are almost always surprised—and moved—to learn that pregnant girls could be expelled from school, or that access to and information about contraception could be limited to married couples. The topic provides us with an opportunity to discuss ways in which America has changed with regard to how we view women’s sexuality and pregnancy, and also ways in which we have not changed.”

A reception will follow Fessler’s talk, and her book will be available for purchase. For more information about her presentation, contact Whitney at 814-898-6325 or e-mail sew17@psu.edu.