Today's fictional book is set in very non-fictional circumstances. Novelist Ann Leary was trying to learn about her grandmother's history as an orphan and found that she worked at a eugenics asylum in Pennsylvania in the early 1900s. This became the basis of her story in the book 'The Foundling' which explores the state of women's rights, the relationship between it and eugenics, and a commentary over the long history of control over women's bodies.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy