Today’s Heroine – Mrs. Bertha Holt

I often wondered who inspired the Mia Farrows, Angelina Jolies, Madonnas and middle-class, white Americans to adopt internationally. After cruising the National Women’s Hall of Fame website, I found her. Bertha Holt was her name.

Bertha Holt and her husband Harry, already the parents of six children, adopted eight Korean children in 1955, after seeing a documentary film about the deplorable conditions of orphaned Amerasian children in Korea. This was a time when adoption in the United States was often a secretive process, and children were matched to parents by their physical appearance to conceal the fact of their adoption. The Holts openly adopting children from another country and race, lifted the shameful stigma of adoption and made it about the love and desire to help those too small to help themselves.

Here is a video of how Holt International was started.

People are interesting.

-Cara