This book examines the adoption process in the United States, asking whether the process provides sufficient protection for children. It deals specifically with independent adoptions—that is, outside of social agencies, through a process in which would-be adoptive parents secure the children either directly from their natural parents or relatives, or through intermediaries such as physicians or lawyers who know of the natural parents’ interest in giving up their children. It details a follow-up investigation with families made during 1956 and 1957 around the time the adopted children were about ten years old.

By virtue of its size, New York City was the first American city to encounter the large-scale health problems of rapid urbanization. As a result, it was forced to pioneer in areas of medicine and health, and to relate public health developments to political, economic, and social change.

A History of Public Health in New York City, 1866–1966, is the second of two volumes by John Duffy. The preceding volume traced the development of the sanitary and health problems of New York form the earliest Dutch times to the culmination of the nineteenth-century reform movement that produced the Metropolitan Health Act of 1866, the forerunner of the New York City Department of Health. In this book, Duffy provides a fascinating and beautifully documented short history of many important aspects of life in New York City over the 100 year period—sanitation, water, food, housing, schools, hospitals, clinics, health centers, diseases, medical care, and the general state of medicine. Chapters provide a narrative history of the major developments in the Health Department, followed by several topical chapters dealing with environmental conditions, epidemic diseases, the state of medicine, and maternal and child health.

John Duffy was Priscilla Aiden Burke Professor of History at the University of Maryland.

This 1937 report has to do with people in the Appalachian Mountain region whose chief concern with handicrafts was the income they would bring, as they offered the only means by which to earn money. One purpose was to show how indispensable handicrafts were in the economy of countless families throughout the region; a second was to show the other rewards handicrafts brought to these same people, what they added to the social and recreational life for the communities in which they carried on, their educational and cultural significance, the esthetic enjoyment they fostered, their help in the field of therapeutics, and the sense of emotional security they gave. Containing fifty-eight illustrations form photographs taken for the work by Doris Ulmann.

Allen H. Eaton was the author of Immigrant Gifts to American Life and part of the Department of Surveys of the Russell Sage Foundation.

Prepared by the Consortium of Social Science Associations (COSSA), a Washington advocacy group serving the major professional societies in the social and behavioral sciences.

The federal government is a major supporter of research in the social and behavioral sciences, but until now, no single, multidisciplinary directory has been available to guide researchers through the complexities of government funding in these fields.

COSSA’s inclusive Guide to Federal Funding describes over 300 federal programs in impressive detail, including funding priorities, application guidelines, and examples of funded research. Introductory essays describe the organization of social science funding and offer inside views of federal funding practices and contract research.

For anyone who needs to know the ins and outs of government funding in the social sciences and related fields, COSSA’s Guide will be an essential new research.

Contributors: David Jenness, William Morrill, Martin Duby, Felice J. Levine, Janet M. Cuca, Barbara A. Bailar, Steven R. Schlesinger, Janet L. Norwood, and Emerson J. Elliott

An examination of the rise and development of therapeutic care for mental illness, studying the activities involved in providing ward care to hospitalized mental health patients. This book came about as a result of a nationwide survey of patient care as provided in representative state and psychiatric hospitals, as well as an experimental project with the Boston Psychopathic Hospital to establish cooperative relations with a state and a neuropsychiatric Veterans Administration hospital in the vicinity, in order to test the applicability of principles and practices such as those used by it. In collaboration with Robert W. Hyde.

Published in 1965, Foundations: 20 Viewpoints made readily available some of the significant and timely discussions of foundations that had appeared in Foundation News, the bimonthly Bulletin issued by the Foundation Library Center. The articles fall into three general categories: broad discussions of private philanthropy and foundations, lists of recent fields in which foundations make grants and operations, and a section on running foundations.

Contributors: Everett Case, Mortimer M. Caplin, Philip S. Broughton, Raymond B. Fosdick, Dyke Brown, J.G. Harrar, Donald Young, W. McNeil Lowry, Paul N. Ylvisaker, Homer C. Wadsworth, G. Harold Duling, Warren Weaver, James A. Perkins, Dean Rusk, Robert H. Mulreany, Rembrandt C. Hiller Jr., Manning M. Pattillo, Yorke Allen Jr.

F. Emerson Andrews was director of publications at the Russell Sage Foundation.

This book examines the sociocultural dynamics behind food – dynamics such as access to foods at the domestic level, the cultural influences training tastes, or the micro-politics that govern its distribution – through the lenses of three communities: the Oglala, a Southern community, and an Italian-American community. Contributors: Mary Douglas, William K. Powers, Marla M.N. Powers, Tony Larry Whitehead, Judith G. Goode, Karen Curtis, Janet Theophano, and Jonathan Gross.

Mary Douglas was Avalon Foundation chair in the humanities at Northwestern University.

This book, published in 1956, is a comprehensive report of a study that was made of the needs of the elderly through a survey conducted at the Kips Bay-Yorkville Health Center in New York City. An essential need for old people, it argues, is an advisory and consulting service that would be an integral part of the official community health and welfare structure.

Bernard Kutner, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Yeshiva University

David Fanshel, Family and Children’s Service, Pittsburgh

Alice M. Togo, Cornell University Medical College

Thomas S. Langner, Cornell University Medical College

This book, published in 1956, is a comprehensive report of a study that was made of the needs of the elderly through a survey conducted at the Kips Bay-Yorkville Health Center in New York City. An essential need for old people, it argues, is an advisory and consulting service that would be an integral part of the official community health and welfare structure.

Bernard Kutner, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Yeshiva University

David Fanshel, Family and Children’s Service, Pittsburgh

Alice M. Togo, Cornell University Medical College

Thomas S. Langner, Cornell University Medical College