Carol J SingleyAdopting America
Childhood, Kinship, and National Identity in Literature
Carol J. Singley is Associate Professor of English at Rutgers University, Camden. She is the author of Edith Wharton: Matters of Mind and Spirit (Cambridge, 1995) and the editor of The American Child: A Cultural Studies Reader (Rutgers UP, 2003), Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth: A Casebook (OUP, 2003) and A Historical Guide to Edith Wharton (OUP, 2003).
Introduction
1: Abandoned and Adopted in a New World
2: Problems of Patrimony: Benjamin Franklin and Ann Sargent Gage
3: Adoption Averted in The Scarlet Letter
4: Plotting Adoption: Dependence and Independence
5: Child Saving, Nation Building: The Wide, Wide World and The Lamplighter
6: Servitude and Homelessness: Harriet Wilson's Our Nig
7: The Limits of Nurture: Louisa May Alcott's Adoption Fiction
8: Charity Begins and Ends at Home: Edith Wharton's Summer
Index
