This September, Claudia Nelson will take up new duties as an associate professor of English at Texas A&M University. She is the author or coeditor of six books (one forthcoming) and numerous articles on matters relating to family, gender roles, and sexuality in nineteenth-century Britain and America--most recently Little Strangers: Portrayals of Adoption and Foster Care in America, 1850-1924 (Indiana UP), to which her talk for this conference is related.