Where was Dorothy's Mother?

Julie Smith

In 1939, when The Wizard of Oz, swooped into theaters, Hollywood was in the midst of a series of movies about orphaned or institutionalized children. In The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy lives with Auntie Em and Uncle Henry. But, where was Dorothy's mother or father? Was she an orphan? It was clear from the ensuing film where and with whom Dorothy lived. She ran away from home, she returned home during the storm, and when she clicked to her heels saying "there's no place like home" it was to Auntie Em and Uncle Henry's home she wanted to return. Movies about children on the margins of American families, orphans, illegitimate or institutionalized children, appear periodically but how have such films viewed these children? Three films from the late 1930s and early 1940s stand out as examples of how children are portrayed when the life of marginalized children is the topic. Avoiding overly sentimental, maudlin, or romanticized views of impoverished childhoods, Boys' Town, Penny Serenade, and Blossoms in the Dust attempt to balance the lives of the children portrayed with the experiences of their parents or guardians.

According to Hollywood, orphans or parentless children abounded during the Great Depression. In MGM's 1938 movie, Boys' Town, Spencer Tracy portrays Father Edward Flanagan, the Catholic priest who built the famous home outside of Omaha Nebraska. For the most part, the movie relies on the stock characters of boys and citizens of the community. Father Flanagan is the picture of patience and the local pawnbroker has a heart of gold demonstrated by his contributions to constructing Boys Town. The children portrayed in Boys' Town are supposed to be delinquents, but appear to be "angels with dirty faces." Each boy attempts to turn his life around through his Boys' Town experience. Using the motto "there's no such thing as a bad boy," Boys' Town operates as a little democracy, electing their own mayor and policing themselves. Each boy has the opportunity to succeed if he so chooses. The other boys reward or punish residents within the framework established by their community. While Father Flanagan soothes the weary and reproves the malcontents, the boys help new arrivals adjust to their new community.

Into this juvenile ideal, comes Whitey (Mickey Rooney) who immediately attempts to exert his own authority in Boys' Town. He is not about to let a priest or the other boys tell him what to do. But when his actions nearly cause the death of another resident, Whitey's actions jeopardize Boys' Town. Whitey's character is revealed through his language, his clothing and his swagger. Whitey's gradual transformation from street tough on his way to the big house to respectable citizen permits the film to "redeem" America's youth.

The film itself offers a glimpse into institutional life that is rarely revealed on film. Showing many of the themes explored in LeRoy's Ashby's Saving the Waifs or Peter Holloran's Boston's Wayward Children: Social Services for Homeless Children 1830-1930, the residents of Boys' Town live in an age integrated dormitory rather than in age segregated cottages. The boys are each taught a marketable skill. Individual counseling, usually in the form of conversations with the priest is available. By the end of the film, the boys each consider Boys' Town their home, and just like Dorothy, when they think of home, it is not with a mother and father, but with the people who created a place for them.

Blossoms in the Dust takes a different view of family. Like Boys' Town, this 1941 MGM release is also a biopic about someone who transformed the lives of children. The similarities between Boys' Town and Blossoms in the Dust are significant. Both films focus on the life of one adult who helps change the lives of a number of children and both protagonists create new facilities for children on the margins of families. But Blossoms in the Dust does not end with the redemption of a child; it includes a study of Gladney's campaign to change in Texas state law.

Blossoms in the Dust begins with main character Edna Gladney (Greer Garson) looking back on her life. The two turning points of Gladney's life were the suicide of her adoptive sister Charlotte and the death of her own son. The first crisis appeared when Charlotte's fiancé sought his parent's permission to marry and introduced Charlotte to his family. The parents were willing to let their son marry an adoptee, not an illegitimate one. The family discovered Charlotte's birth status because her birth certificate had been stamped illegitimate. Unable to bare the shame, Charlotte committed suicide. Later, Gladney married a successful flower mill owner and appeared to have a happy life until the second crisis, the death of her child. To relieve her grief, Gladney decided to devote her life to children.

Even though she founded the Texas Children's Home and Aid Society in Ft. Worth, Gladney believed that even a great orphanage was no match for a home. To make this point, Blossoms in the Dust focuses on the relationship between Edna and an individual orphan, Tony. Balancing the knowledge of Tony's inevitable adoption with his need for love while in the orphanage, Edna bonded with Tony and both appeared to want to cry when Tony left the orphanage. Following Tony's adoption, the final part of the movie is about Gladney's campaign to remove the stamp illegitimate from birth certificates. Using a reoccurring phrase, "there are no illegitimate children, only illegitimate parents," the movie ends with Edna's triumph of removing the stigma of illegitimacy from Texas birth certificates.

As in Boys' Town, this film also exposes a number of themes typically discussed in children's history or family history. Using the themes explored by E. Wayne Carp in Family Matters: Secrecy and Disclosure in the History of Adoption and Barbara Melosh in Strangers and Kin: The American Way of Adoption, the secrecy of Charlotte's adoption is explored through an impending marriage but also discussed when Edna's inability to have another child is revealed. The meaning of being a family is being explored through adoption and the role of orphanages placing children into homes to "complete the family." Again institutional life is examined, but rather than focusing on children in the orphanage, how they lived, and the relationships they formed, this film focuses on how the institution functioned.

Penny Serenade looks at what happens when a child is adopted into a family. This 1941 MGM film looks at a marriage and the role a child played in defining the couple as a family. The story is told through a series of Julie's (Irene Dunne) flashbacks of her marriage to Roger Adams (Cary Grant). After marrying quickly and moving to Japan just before the Tokyo earthquake, Julie is pregnant. The earthquake injures Julie, however, leaving her unable to bear children. Following a chance suggestion by a friend to adopt, the couple goes to an adoption agency where they expected to leave with a child. Roger wanted a "boy, about two because they are housebroken by that age" and Julie wanted a two year old boy, with golden curly hair, because that would be the age of the child they lost after the earthquake. The softhearted agency director intercedes on their behalf to find them a child and within weeks they quickly have a 5-week-old girl on a one-year probation for adoption.

The only child with a speaking part was Trina, their daughter, a typical precocious child -- cute, smart, and everything both of her parents want. Trina's sudden death at the age of seven was not shown, but the effect of her death on the family is devastating. Writing to the agency director, Julie poured out her heart to the director and on the eve of leaving Roger, the director contacts the couple to let them know that the boy they asked for those years ago is available, but another couple should "by rights" have the opportunity to get him first. Julie asks that they be allowed to see the boy first. This child then saved not only the marriage, but also created a new family.

The themes explored in this film are subtler than those in Boys' Town or Blossoms in the Dust and for the most part are a better exploration of marriage or family formation than a view of childhood. The first few scenes of courtship in the 1920s are interesting and realistic to changes in dating practices during this period. But while not discussing much about Julie's inability to bear children, the film does however closely look at how a child completes a family portrait, even as the reality of adoption is obscured. The humor of adoptive parents and their first night with a child is clearly shown. But Julie and Roger's expectations of simply attending an interview and receiving a child were unrealistic. On several occasions, the parents search for physical similarities between themselves and their adopted children. But Roger's appearance in court to beg to keep Trina when he has no job and is bankrupt, while heartfelt, was unrealistic. The idea that any judge would be swayed by a simple argument without a concrete plan demonstrates a lack of understanding of the "best interest of the child" doctrine. The agency director, while sympathetic, voiced little support during Roger's pleading. When Roger returned home with Trina, both parents are overjoyed. The aftereffects of Trina's death are realistic, but the agency director receiving a Christmas card and suddenly finding an available child is again unrealistic. Overall the film captures the angst of adoptive parents in the 1930s without truly capturing the reality of Depression Era adoptions.

Taken as a whole, these films represent examples of how Hollywood has viewed children on the margins of the family. Dorothy's situation is ignored. Whitey is a delinquent with a heart of gold. Tony is disabled but loveable. Trina is a newborn who completes a family. All of the children find a home, but it is with a family they define not necessarily with their biological family. What binds all of these children was where they lived. With the possible exception of Whitey, all of these children were living in rural communities. Pamela Riney-Kehrberg's recent work on farm children, Childhood On The Farm: Work, Play, And Coming Of Age In The Midwest, explores how few Midwestern farm children ever entered state homes before the 1920s. Often neighbors, family, and friends helped a family in need. As the depression appeared and continued, the need for institutions helping families and children were needed and institutions like Boys' Town and The Fort Worth Children's Home appeared to serve the needs of children and families struggling to survive. Hollywood represented all of the institutions as caring, necessary, and filling a vital gap in the nation's welfare network; all of the children deserved a family; and all of the families were loving.

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