n the opening article of thisjournal issue, Sokoloff describes the origin of the statutory requirements that adoption be confidential and that the original birth certificate and adoption records be sealed. As he points out, the early laws, beginning with the Minnesota Act of 1917, were designed to shield adoption procedures from public scrutiny, so as to provide privacy for both the birthparents and the adoptive parents, and to remove the stigma of illegitimacy from the child. The intent of these original statutes was not to create anonymity between birthparents and adoptive parents or to keep secret from adopted children any information about their past. During the ensuing 30-year period, ideas about who should be protected and from whom changed. By the early 1950s virtually every state had amended its adoption statutes to create complete anonymity for the birthparents. Even in private adoptions where the law permitted the birthmother to choose the adoptive family, rarely did she meet the adoptive parents face to face or maintain any contact with her birthchild. In effect, both public and private systems for adoption were tightly closed.
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Baran et al. (1993) studied this question.