In older cartoons and movie shorts that I’ve seen, there are scenes where someone will leave a baby on a doorstep, presumably in the hope that the people behind the door will be in a better position to care for the baby than the person who left it there.
Was this known to happen in reality in the 40’s or thereabouts? If so, what was the fate of the baby? Does the case of Finders v. Keepers take legal precedent?
I’m starting to think that much of the social context of those Looney Toons cartoons that I used to watch back in the 70’s was lost on us Generation-X Latchkey kids.
My great-great-grandmother was found on a doorstep circa 1880. She was taken in as part of the family and named Sally Scarlet, because she came wrapped in a red blanket.
I know that in medieval times, church doors were constructed so that children could be left there without the child being endangered (from being out in the cold) or the mother being seen. In those cases, the child was usually raised by the church (to become either clergy, if male, or a nun, if female).
I would guess that by the 40s, you were supposed to give up the child to an orphanage: that was used in the original Superman continuity: the Kents found the baby, took him to the orphanage, and later adopted him.
Did it happen in the 40’s? It still happens today. For that reason, some states have designated hospitals and fire stations as safe places to abandon a child, to avoid the horror stories of finding a dead baby outside.
A few weeks ago the BBC ran a series of TV programmes about this very subject. The babies were left not just on doorsteps but in car-parks, public toilets and even in the middle of fields. Details here
I have two 40-something friends (married to each other, in fact) who are both “doorstep babies”—anonymously abandoned and later adopted. It definitely still happens now, too.
My understanding is that she looked nothing like the family who found her, and was suspected of being gypsy or part gypsy–so no. Of course, I wasn’t there to see for myself…
Apparently, "Under Washington law, a mother who abandons a newborn at a hospital emergency room or fire station that is open for business is not liable criminally. "
In Germany and other European countries there are a series of “baby boxes” installed in places where mothers can leave their infants knowing they will be safe and warm . Baby Boxes
There’s also a sub-genre of this where babies would be left at the manor door of nobles and lords; presumbably by lowborn women who got pregnant by M’lord or his sons.
The author James Michener was left in a wicker basket on the doorstep of two Quaker spinster sisters who already had foster children. He never knew who his real family was. I’ve wondered if the tales he wrote may have fostered the meme.
