The Foundling

Content Warning: This novel discusses eugenics, forced institutionalization, racism, and child sexual abuse. It also uses outdated terminology for discussing mental health and disabilities, which is reproduced in quotation in this guide.

Mary compares the day she was picked up by her father from St. Catherine’s Orphan Asylum and the day Dr. Vogel offers her a job at Nettleton State Village for Feebleminded Women of Childbearing Age. Mary remembers that when her father showed up at the orphanage in 1922, she was 12 years old, and he did not recognize her. Mary was often laughed at by the other girls at the orphanage because her real name was German—Edeltraud—and they were jealous that she had a father. Mary packed her mother’s pink satin suitcase, which enthralled both her and the nuns, and she left with her father to her aunt Kate’s house, where she spent the next five years.

Five years later, Mary is invited to meet Dr. Vogel by her teacher of stenography, shorthand, and typing, Mrs. Pierson. Mary is not interested in Dr. Vogel’s lecture about protecting vulnerable women, women’s suffrage, and temperance, but she hopes to get a job from Dr. Vogel. She plans to work, save for college, and move to an exciting city like Chicago or New York.