User blog comment:Pawn of Atlas/Important Discussion for Rapture Storyline page/@comment-75.36.142.227-20140329223049/@comment-108.211.121.217-20140330215853

''"ADAM production (including the Little Sister Orphanages) was important to keep operating (the addiction was already started even with the small pre-Civil War number).  We arent really told how much competition existed in the ADAM production, but it sounded like it was important for that operation to resume soonest.    Ryan might arrange to get at least interim control if the stability of the City depended on continuance." ''

Thinking back, when Elizabeth mentions to Atlas in the near beginning of BaS pt. 2, that they were "making Little Sisters by the dozen", Atlas seems genuinely surprised, so it can be the case that Ryan shut down most of Fontaine's functions and businesses (or nationalizing his properties) before sinking Atlas, his followers and anyone in possible cahoots with Fontaine down into the department store into the ravine. But only then he realized the potential in the Little Sisters and Adam (via an audio diary found in Arcadia in the first Bioshock), and then created Little Wonders in place of or reusing Little Sister Orphanages for the Little Sisters site.