CAN YOU BELIEVE IT ? This happened during the "Depression" in the late 1930's and early 1940's in the United States. Families who had many children, and could not feed them and take care of them properly, sold their children - - and the local governments "looked the other way". They thought possibly the children would be taken care of better by the "new parents". Few parents who did this were so blatant about it and put up signs. It was mostly an "undercurrent. People knew about it, but mostly did not talk about it.