The Florence Crittenton Maternity Home, at 11850 Woodrow Wilson, in Detroit, was located next to the Crittenton General Hospital in Detroit. The maternity home, as shown in in this photograph, was under renovation and construction. Women who stayed in the home would deliver their infants next door, at the hospital, located at 1554 Tuxedo Avenue.
I was born in Crittenton General Hospital, one the nation’s largest hospitals created to serve unwed mothers and their infants and later a major health center delivering infants relinquished for adoption. It was located at 1554 Tuxedo Avenue, and closed in 1974. This photo dates from 1929.
This week, I finally received a copy of one of the few pictures that may be publicly available of the former Florence Crittenton Maternity Home of Detroit from the 1950s. This was the third Crittenton maternity home that the national organization opened in Detroit. It was located adjacent to the Crttenton General Hospital, where I was born.
The hospital provided both maternal health services and boarding for single, pregnant mothers. I and literally thousands and thousands of other adoptees were born in such facilities during the boom years of American adoption, from the 1950s through the early 1970s.
The National Crittenton Foundation of Portland, Oregon, in my home town, provided me the image of the maternity home, and I am grateful for their support and for meeting with me to discuss my upcoming book and the larger story of this foundation’s predecessors.
I have written at length about the original Florence Crittenton Mission and its successor agencies on my blog, documenting how this benevolent and originally Christian group that first served prostitutes and “fallen women” became an organization that sought to help abused, vulnerable, and single-parent women. Part of its original core mission was to fight and eradicate the stigma associated with illegitimacy and to keep mothers and their infants together.
The issue of illegitimacy, ultimately, drove the booming adoption system into which people like me were placed.
Most bastards born into this system–the word “bastard” accurately describes my status in life and my life story–were told we did not have the equal legal rights of all non-adopted U.S. citizens to know who we were by so-called “adoption professionals” and state agencies and legislatures. This inequality and human rights issue remains to this day, without much public interest outside of adoptee advocates themselves.
The national Crittenton organizations that succeeded the original mission evolved into adoption placement centers, starting in the late 1940s, as so-called “adoption professionals” such as social workers assumed greater control of maternity facilities that were ubiquitous in most large U.S. cities (see Regina Kunzel’s study of this movement: Fallen Women, Problem Girls). The Crittenton facilities, like my birthplace in Detroit, became essential facilities in a national movement to promote adoption as the “most suitable plan” to separate bastard babies like me from their birth mothers and biological kin and place them in new families.
According to the Child Welfare League of America, 98 percent of all babies, like me and thousands of others, who were born in Crittenton facilities or served by them during the peak adoption years were placed for adoption.
This story is my story, and also the story of thousands of others like me who passed through the halls of this building and its earlier maternity home facilities and maternity hospitals in Detroit and dozens of other cities. My forthcoming memoir and critical examination of the American adoption experience, You Don’t Know How Lucky You Are, offers a detailed look at the history of this now demolished hospital and how its legacy still remains today.
The former maternity home building is now run by Cass Community Social Services. You can see photos of the old maternity home, as it appears today, on Google maps.
(Editor’s note: I have updated this post on July 14, 2017, to reflect new information shared with me that the photo of the maternity home, seen on this page, was incorrectly identified as the hospital. I have updated this page to now include an image of the original Crittenton General Hospital of Detroit, dating from 1929.)
Hi! I was born in the FC Home in Detroit in 1964.
First time seeing the picture–wow.
Until the delivery (when things got ugly) my mother said she was treated pretty well there.
I remember her telling me that once a girl ‘went over to the other side’ (the delivery room) the others never saw her again.
She also said they were not allowed to ask each other’s last names. It wasn’t until she left the home that she realized why–so they could never talk to or find one another again.
Sigh.
I agree, it is very amazing to finally see a picture. I hope sharing helps people remember the stories of the single women and infants who passed through there. My book will be part of that storytelling.
I was born there in 1963. Almost cribmates.
Nice to have others born at Crittenton General Connect here. Thanks for visiting. And yes, there were many thousands of us in those cribs over the decades.
That is very true we were not to tell our last names or where we were from. It was a nice place in the dorms because you were among your peers. The social workers were not nice. These people told you how you were not worthy to have your child and to make you feel less than a human being. I was there my child was born 01/01/1969.
I love my daughter with all my heart I was forced to sign her over. Not a day has gone by that I don’t think of her. I’ve felt like jumping in the Detroit river.walk in front of a fast moving vehicle, car truck etc. Now I’m 69 and found out it was arranged.
We were told the father had no right back in the day not true his is died now.
Iām sorry Iām sending you love.
My mother was almost forced to give me up. My parentās married in July of 67
Very true we were not to tell our last names but I did anyway and kept in touch with three of my friends one was my room mate. I needed them to help me cope.
Ty for sharing.. 3 of us adopted from here yeats 48 53 56 ..Would love to see pictures…Adopted by a Doctor and nurse who bought 3 of us. Then moved to AK that was not yet a state…There they adopted 2 more….Changed all birth given names…
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I’m glad that you, too, are bringing to light the history of the Flo Crits (the positive early history of helping). The history during the Baby Scoop Era (the BSE), babyscoopera.com, was a violent one caused by the advent of adoption social work as a new and growing profession. Coercive, pressuring and abusive by agencies and maternity “homes.” See my book “The Baby Scoop Era; Unwed Mothers, Infant Adoption and Forced Surrender” (2017) to read about this evolution (mid-1940s through the early 1970s) in the very words of the “professionals” working during that era (adoption workers, lawyers, judges, doctors, sociologists, psychiatrists and historians). Karen Wilson-Buterbaugh
Karen, thanks for writing. I sent you a separate note to your website. My book will look at the work of social workers, doctors, and public health professionals in promoting adoption and turning it into one of the largest social engineering experiments in U.S. history–one that still is considered taboo to discuss or critically examine. I read your article on your experience in the DC area and reference that in my forthcoming memoir, because it was one of the few I could find from the time I was born.
In the halls of Crittenton Hospital in Rochester, MI is a picture of Florence Crittenton Hospital, Detroit, Michigan, Tuxedo & Woodrow Wilson Blvd. I recently was there and took a picture of this photo hangin on the wall. I could email to you the picture I photographed.
Patricia, that would be great. You can find my my email address on this page: http://www.rudyowens.com/contact/. I look forward to seeing it and hearing your story. Thanks for visiting.
Hi Patricia, was this open in late 1926 and early 1927? My grandmother gave birth to my mother in Detroit on Jan 6, 1927. I don’t have her original birth certificate because it’s sealed.
No, Detroit Crittenton General Hospital opened in 1929. Crittenton Hospital in Rochester opened in 1967. The were three previous Crittenton facilities in Detroit prior to Crittenton General Hospital opening (the largest in the nation among all Crittenton facilities.) You can red my article here. https://www.howluckyuare.com/crittenton-general-hospitals-forgotten-legacy/. I also believe with your mother passed away (if she is, and assuming so based on DOB), you should be able to petition for the release of the OBC of your mother.
Dear Rudy,
Thank you so much for your work and for posting these pictures. I was born there in 1946, and until now it never occured to me to seek information about the home. I was blessed to be raised by loving grandparents and my mother; but I’ve always wanted or needed to connect the dots. My mother nor other family members would ever talk about it.
Again, thank you!
Bonnie I’m delighted that you found my work and that these images and stories connected with you. We all deserve to connect our dots.
im looking for apparently my brother born april 3 1940 or april 7 1940 can someone please tell me how to find him he would be 80 yrs old he has 4 siblings that would love to meet him. our mother passed and we just found a baby book with some of the info. how do we find adoption records or whatever we need to find him we pray its not to late
I was born in the Detroit Crittenton home in Oct of 1950. I was adopted at birth.
Nice to meet another Crittenton kid. So we have some big stuff in common then. Thanks for visiting my site, Gary.
contact wayne county court (intermediary division) Third Circuit Court of Michigan Attn: Post adoptions
1025 E Forest ave
Detroit Mi 48207
3138330032
I`m looking into a family member who was born/adopted at the hospital August 7, 1955. Her birth certificate only shows her adoptive parents, and she has a couple of random descriptions of her biologicals. She has now passed away but her daughter and I have a DNA connection according to ancestry tests that say: 98cM across 5 segments. I would love some feedback on how to find her mother`s biological parents names.
Hi Crissy: Thanks for visiting my website. I am unable to provide the assistance you are seeking. My website provides as much information as I could find to assist adult adoptees access records that are, for this era, immorally and I believe unconstitutionally hidden by law. You can start with this page: https://www.howluckyuare.com/guide-michigan-adoptees-seeking-court-orders-original-birth-certificates/. My book may also be helpful, and you can order it here: https://www.howluckyuare.com/buy-the-book/. I also would encourage you and your relatives to support any legislative change that would restore legal rights of adoptees born in Michigan to access their original identity documents. Thanks if you can do that.
I am trying to learn about my father’s biological father. My father was born in Detroit in 1941 to an unwed mother. She did not put him up for adoption, she raised him. I think she was only in Michigan to have the baby and went back to Washington. Can anyone help me figure out why she would go so far away from home? I am not sure where precisely she delivered my father. Maybe here?
contact wayne county court (intermediary division) Third Circuit Court of Michigan Attn: Post adoptions
1025 E Forest ave
Detroit Mi 48207
3138330032
I’m writing a novel about a young woman (in real life, a friend of mine) who is adopted by a woman who gives her baby up for adoption in 1943, and I’m having this occur at the FCMH in Detroit. Thank you so much for this photo. It will help a lot in describing the setting in my story. Do you know if Jewish girls were allowed to go to the FCMH? My character (friend) feels sure her birth mother was Jewish, although of course she has no way of knowing. Also, it seems that all the books focus on post-war adoptions, but my friend was adopted in 1943 shortly after she was born. Any information you can provide about adoptions during the war years would be greatly appreciated.
Hi Pam: For starters, you could order my book, which dedicates a chapter to Crittenton General Hospital. By doing that you also help support me keeping this website and these public resources available to the public. Records from this facility allegedly are “not to be found,” which my book explains. You can also check your public library for some books on the history of the Crittenton association. My book has a detailed bibliography to help researchers. Thanks for visiting my site.
Thanks, Rudy. I’ll assume some of the “not to be found” records are ones for at least one Jewish girl.
I was born there to a Jewish young woman. But that was 1961 so things could have changed.
I gave birth in 1968 and l went to see my Baby who l never got to touch/hold ever.
I would visit her through the glass giving a window into the nursery.
One day l went to visit her and with no notice….she was gone.
Michigan law also has no allowances for descendants to obtain information/records. My great-grandmother was born in Detroit in 1908, and she was later adopted, although the details are fuzzy. (I’m pretty confident she grew up with her biological mother, but she spent her whole life trying to locate information about her birth father who was reported deceased. It’s complicated.) But now that she’s gone, despite the fact that she was looking, that she’s deceased, and I’m her direct descendant, I can’t get access to her original documents.
I would love to continue her research — it was obviously important to her, so it’s important to me. But there is simply no mechanism to seek a court order to unseal these records. š
I don’t know what I can do to support better legislation there because I’m not local (I live in VA), but I’m definitely willing to do what I can to support a more just approach to recordkeeping.
Michigan law is discriminatory to Michigan born adoptees, in nearly all senses, and the laws need to be changed to provide equal legal and human rights to adoptees, and their heirs. That has been an issue for decades, but it has not gained traction among state lawmakers, the media, or the public in Michigan. It requires people who can work to create change. I hope you can join that effort. One idea could be to write a letter to the director of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services and copy state media reporters explaining this unfair treatment. That is one way to get this story known. I wish you luck and hope you remain engaged.
I Was wondering if Nuns were involved there, I Was born to an unwed Mother in Detroit September 21,1958 & wherever I was I spent my first 6 Months till adoption being cared for by Nuns.
David how do you know nuns were involved in your care? There may have been some system allowing Catholic Charities in there for selecting infants, but I don’t know the records. The national Crittenton system was a Protestant in orientation from its beginning through its transformation to the Crittenton Association of America after the 1940s.
Come join us at Origins America on Facebook!! We’re demanding a Federal Investigation and Apology!!
Hi I was not born there, but became interested, when i was looking on Ancestry and noticed so many baby deaths. I have been looking for the facility on the 1950 census, but can not find it. Thanks for the info and pictures
I’m looking for my grandmother, who would likely have stayed at this home. She gave birth around the age of 15 to my now late father, Daniel, on 09/27/1969. He was born @10:13 a
m. On his birth certificate it says he was born in Warren, Macomb County Michigan, but I always suspected his certificate was amended, as it wasn’t signed until 2~3 weeks after his birth on 10/07/1969. I have all this information and still haven’t found anything. I believe this to be because my grandmother’s rights were likely terminated without her knowing amd consent. There has got to be documentation somewhere.
Interesting! I was born at Crittenton General Hospital (Detroit) in 1963. I didn’t know the history of the hospital. I wonder why my parents chose that hospital. (They were married). My older brother and sister (twins) were born two years earlier than me at Burton Mercy Hospital in Detroit. (That was a hospital founded by African American physicians).
The doctor who delivered me was African American – maybe he had privileges at certain hospitals??
From the research I was able to find, it served women who were mostly pressured to relinquish their children for adoption and families/women who may have needed affordable healthcare (one of three wings was for the latter category). Medicaire/Medicaid were not yet law at the time of your birth (or mine), but shortly after, and that could have been a reason if funds were an issue? That’s a guess. From what I learned from a practicing ob-gyn there, they had good care with doctors doing rotations from medical schools too. They probably had a lot of expertise delivering infants there.
Hi. Thank you for your research! Do you know if the young mother had to put her parents name on the birth certificate instead of her own because she was underage?
That’s a broad question, and Crittenton had multiple facilities in Detroit dating to the late 1800s too. Absent individual witnesses sharing their personal stories, of which I believe there is no collection from oral histories for this facility, and the efforts by society to silence all women coerced surrender infants for adoption, I can’t accurately answer your question. It’s now posted here. We do know adoption officials created lies on original vital records without the consent of mothers and of course the infants to create fake “paper trails” to harm the families separated and promote their secretive practices–so assume illegal practices did happen among those who helped separate tens of thousands of families, intentionally. I’ve heard directly from people in Michigan who told of these illegal practices and deception.
I was born there 08/31/1968. Just now seeing this building. Didn’t know it was a Home for expected single mothers. I only knew that after my birth I was placed with Lutheran services for adoption. Not really sure how to feel about this. It makes me sad and relieved at the same time. Thank U
I am looking for someone who was born there in 68.
My mom had a baby boy there around May and she asked that I help her locate him 12+ years ago but she passed 5 years ago.
Sadly, someone use the intermediary service through the court and were told my mom gave birth to them but something got mixed up because it turns out we are not related at all.
Itās now a low income apartments
Hi Rudy,
My name is Terryanne. I was told by my mom that I was born in FC hospital and was transferred to Detroit Childrenās Hospital because of my premature birth 08/14/1953. Mom said FC hospital was the closest hospital to where she lived. Her doctor, Aurech was a general practitioner. I think he delivered me. My parents were married, but my father was physically abusive . I was the last of 9 pregnancies, 2 live births, 2 still borne, 4 aborted naturally. What ever the cause smoking, beatings, who knows. I was Frank breach, (buttocks first) 3 pounds 3 ounces. 71 years ago, premature babies didnāt survive. Especially ones born 2 months early. I am blessed and thankful to FC for the care of my mother and the delivery care. They were very good.
I was born there on 09/28/1969 to a 15 year old mother. And was cared for by nuns until nov 17 1969 from macomb county, adopted parents lived in warren also. Wow