In addition to Jean Paton’s many activities pioneering the adoption reform movement in the 1950s—setting up the Life History Study Center, writing The Adopted Break Silence, traveling around the country interviewing adult adoptees—she was an omnivorous reader, revealing a remarkable appetite for interdisciplinary study, including history, religion, politics, psychology, science, genealogy, anthropology, and sociology. In 1957 alone, Jean read nineteen books and in the next year and a half she consumed another twenty-five. In addition, Paton read for the first time a number of books written by or about adopted or orphaned individuals.  For example, she read William March’s 1954 novel, The Bad Seed, which centered on Christine Penmark, a young mother who discovered that her eight-year-old daughter, Rhoda had murdered three people and a little dog.  For a variety of reasons, Penmark discovers that she had been adopted, that her mother was a notorious serial killer, and fears that she has passed on to Rhoda her criminal genes. The subject of eugenics and the inheritance of personality traits was topic that Paton began during this period and developed a life-long interest in. She also read A Cornish Waif’s Story: An Autobiography, which told the story of the pseudonymous Emma Smith, who had been born out of wedlock and abandoned by her family.  Smith endured slave-like labor conditions at the hands of an itinerant organ grinder and his wife from age five on, escaping at to take refuge in a convent.  Ultimately, Emma Smith found happiness and marriage with a home and family of her own.

Below is a partial list of the books that Jean Paton compiled with her notes during the years 1956-1959.

Partial List of Books Read (1956-1959)

6-56

Steinbeck

East of Eden(first noted in  movie version with James Dean.  Relationship to separated – dead? – legitimate mother and influence on contemporary relationships)

1952

Viking

6-56

Boone, J.

Kinship with All Life

(communication between animals and people philosophy of human relations in parable)

1954

Harpers

7-56

Hale, E.E.

Man without a Country

(Traits and behavior of unbelonging man)

1863

7-56

Kierkegaard

Repetition

(the exceptional man’s relationships)

1843

(1941 Princeton)

7-56

Hawthorne

Blithedale Romance

(exaggerations of professionals)

1852

8-56

Reben, Martha

The Way of the Wilderness

(non-analogous return to nature and beauty)

1955

Crowell

8-56

Heard, Gerald

The Human Venture

(how man binds himself together, comparative religion with wide vistas and some intense comment and insight)

1955

Harper

11-56

Opler

Culture, Psychiatry and Human Values

(struggle through medical rigidities and the “literature” of interdiscipline.  Very real concern, almost breaks into the necessary human insight)

1956

Thomas

11-56

Osborne, Fred

Preface to Eugenics

1940

Harper

11-56

Hawthorne

Twice Told Tales “The Death Knell”

(traits)

12-56

Collier, John

The Indians of the Americas

(the two cultures, segregation, etc)

1947

Norton

12-56

Arnold, H.

“On the Study of Celtic Literature”

1883

Macmillan

1-57

Brogger and Shetelig

The Viking Ships

(ecology and death)

1951

Oslo

1-57

Handlin, O

The Uprooted

1951

Little B.

3-57

Sperry, WL

Religion in America

1946

Macm.

3-57

Coster, G.

Yoga and Western Psychology

1934

Oxford

Green, J.R.

History of the English People

(vol. 3 Puritan England

1903

4-57

Suzuki, DR

Zen Buddhism

(trauma – satori)

1956

Anchor

6-57

DeVries, Peter

The Tunnel of Love

1949

Little B

5-57

Maurois, A

Lelia, the Life of George Sand

1953

Harper

7-57

Lessner, E

Siberia, Cradle of Conquerors

1955

Harper

7-57

Rampa, Lobsang

The Third Eye

1956

Secker and W.

7-57

Watts, Alan

The Supreme Identity

1950

Pantheon

8-57

Stark, Freya

Ionia, a Quest

1954

Harcourt

9-57

Hawkes, J

Man on Earth

1954

Random

Whyte, W.W. Jr.

The Organization Man

1956

S and Sch.

Miller, Laura Owen

The Place of Sapphires

1956

John Day

Belloc, H

The servile State

1912

Foulis

11-57

Djilas, M

The New Class

1957

Prager

11-57

Robertson, R.B.

Of Sheep and Men

1957

Knopf

12-57

Lytle, Andrew

The Velvet Horn

1957

McD Obol

1-58

Winslow, OE

Jonathan Edwards 1703-1758

1940

Macmillan

1-58

Bland, George

The Great Migrations

1956

Macmillan

1-58

March W

The Bad Seed

1954

Rinehart

1-58

White, Patrick

Voss

1957

Viking

3-58

Winwar, F

Farewell the Banner

(Wordsworth, Coleridge)

1938

Doubleday

4-58

Camara Laye

The Dark Child

(universals)

1954

Nooneday

4-58

Lewis CS

The Problem of Pain

(cure     trauma)

1944

Macmillan

4-58

Rice TT

Scythians

(marginal)

1957

Prager

4-58

Miers, (ed)

The American Story

(immigrants)

1956

Channel

5-58

Willke, Carl

Refugees of Revolution

1952

U of Pa

6-58

Hansen ML

The Atlantic Migration

1940

Harvard

7-58

Castiglioni, P

Adventures of the Mind

1946

Knopf

9-58

West, Rebecca

The Court and the Castle

1957

Yale

10-58

Ropke, Wilhelm

The Social Crisis of our Time

1950

U of Chi

10-58

Tillich, Paul

Biblical Religion and the Search for Ultimate Reality

1955

U of Chi

10-58

West, R

The Thinking Reed

1936

Viking

10-58

DeLaet, S J

Archaeology and Its Problems

1957

Phoenix

11-58

Mills, CW

The Power Elite

1957

Oxford

11-58

West, R

The Black lamb and the Grey Falcon

The strange Necessity

1940

1928

Double day

2-59

Howells, Wm.

The Heathers

1948

Doubleday

2-59

Smith, Emma

A Cornish Waif’s Story

1956

Dutton

2-59

Kahler, E

The Tower and the Abyss

1957

Brazil.

3-59

Burnett L

Universe and Dr. Einstein

1948

Sloane

3-59

Ouspensky RD

The Fourth Way

1957

Knopf

4-59

Jenkins E

Elizabeth the Great

1959

Coward Mc

(In addition to these books, others were read

and purchased for the library of Hill House.

These will be listed separately in a forth-

coming brochure.)

Source: Partial List of Books Read,” in Jean Paton, The Vocabulary of Social Orphanhood with focus on Adoption, Mimeograph (Hasty AR: Orphan Voyage, 1964), n.p