No form of charitable work undertaken in this busy century holds more
perplexity and uncertainty than that for women, who, whether for great or
small offenses, have come under the ban of the law, and who pass from the
shadow of the prison to confront a public feeling which is, in the main,
so absolutely antagonistic as to leave small chance for reform, or hope
of making new and better place.
It is certain that there is much justification for such feeling. There
are few in whom the missionary spirit is strong enough to enable them to
accept undaunted, the possibilities involved in receiving as a member
of the family, a woman whose desire for reform may be outweighed a
thousand times by the power of her appetites, and whose influence may
bring contamination to all within its reach. Even in less dangerous
cases, where youth and ignorance are the excuses for the violation of
law, there is always the fear that association with older offenders has
given a knowledge of evil that will work equal disaster, and thus the
door is as effectually closed against the slight as against the confirmed
transgressor. It is part of the popular conviction that work for women
is far less productive of results than work for men, a conviction that
has a certain foundation of truth. Even in the Water Street Mission of
New York, in which the most apparently hopeless class was reached and
held, McAuley was constantly baffled by this fact, and in time accepted
it as inevitable. He did not question, more than other workers have done,
why this was so, or how far the world was responsible for the state of
things he bewailed, but came at last, by almost unconscious steps, to the
conclusion given in a talk with the writer.
“You’ve wondered, at times, that we didn’t have more women here,” he
said, a year or two before his death. “Don’t you know that you can haul
in a hundred men to one woman? What it means, the good Lord only knows,
but they don’t stay put. They cry an’ promise, an’ promise an’ cry,
an’ you do for ’em with all your might, an’ all at once they’re off,
an’ may be you never see ’em again.… When a girl’s once down, it isn’t
once in five hundred times that you can pull her out. Take that very
one you was so sorry for. She’s been to every meeting ’round here, an’
cried an’ begged to be helped. She’s been taken first to one ‘Home’ an’
then to another, an’ she’s run from every one back to her old life. The
system’s wrong. That’s my opinion. You take a ‘Home’ where a lot are in
together, an’ the devil’s let loose. They chew tobacco an’ chew snuff,
an’ get drunk on the sly, an’ the old ones tell the young ones all their
lives, an’ the last end is worse than the first, for they learn a lot of
deviltry to add to their own. There ain’t but one way, as I can see, to
save ’em. Keep ’em apart. Let Christian families that can, make up their
minds to take one at a time; hedge her round; give her enough to do, an’
get her interested, an’ pray night an’ day she may be kept. That will
save a good many, for it’s mostly worked where it’s been tried. But there
ain’t anything in our work so discouragin’ as this very thing. What you
going to do? These girls comin’ out of homes where a dozen, may be, has
herded in one room, what do they know of decency or cleanliness? What
can they know, I’d like to know? No, I tell you; the work’s got to begin
at the beginning. Get hold of the children. Send them off. Do anything
that’ll train them differently. They’re born in sin and born to sin, and
the Lord only knows what’ll come if good men and women don’t wake up and
take hold.”
Admitting the serious nature of the difficulties involved, it is quite
certain that many of them have been born of an utterly false estimate
of the relative degrees of guilt in men and women. Neither time nor
space allows discussion of this point beyond the suggestion that in the
present White Cross movement, and the questions that at once arise as
the first necessity in any understanding of its nature or need, may be
found the secret of much that has made against women. Simple justice, the
last acquired and, it would seem, the hardest won of all virtues, makes
chastity as binding an obligation upon man as upon woman, and gives to
both, when repentant, the same pardon and the same hope for a future.
Thus far, charity has ignored the woman, forcing her to bear not only the
pain and sorrow of unblessed motherhood, but the sentence of perpetual
banishment from the society whose laws she has defied.
It is at this stage that workers among the poor most often find her,
hopeless, and in the large proportion of cases driven back to crime as
her only resort. They form a great proportion of the inmates of any
prison for women. Every town and village has its quota of candidates for
reformatory or jail, and mourns, collectively and individually, over the
terrible tendencies of this class, with small thought that prevention
may be easier than cure, and that if children born to such conditions
come into the world, society is bound to see that their training shall,
as far as possible, neutralize the results of such inheritance. Society
has no time for prevention. It proposes to pay for prisons rather than
for industrial schools; to labor with full fledged criminals, rather
than to crush out vice while still in embryo, and congratulates itself
on the magnificent liberality of its provision for the criminal, and the
remarkable success of the prison system as a whole.
Women are supposed to be merely occasional offenders, and that there
are, in every state, hundreds outside of the prison who are habitual
law breakers, and an equally large proportion within its walls, is a
proposition received as incredible. Yet it was not till Massachusetts
found herself forced to deal with eight hundred per year of such cases,
that the first reformatory was organized, in 1865, and the number has
increased steadily with the increase in population. County prisons,
of which there were twenty-one, were, too often, simply nests for
propagating vice. In a few of the larger ones great order and system
prevailed. In the smaller ones there was next to none, and male and
female prisoners, dirty, ragged and obscene, mingled together and
interchanged lessons in new forms of vice. In all of them three classes
of offenses were to be found, women convicts being sentenced usually for
drunkenness, unchastity, or larceny; the relative prevalence of the three
being indicated by the order in which they are given. The first class,
wherever found, are most often Irish women, at, or past, the middle age.
They are not criminals, though at times, in some cases, dishonest or
unchaste. Often they are eager to reform, and yield to the temptation to
drink as many men yield, for the momentary relief from grinding care and
anxiety. Many of them become accustomed to the short sentences usually
given by magistrates for this offense, and there are countless women
who have had thirty, forty, and even fifty short imprisonments. A long
term, or, in aggravated cases, imprisonment for life, affords the only
security, the mere smell of liquor being often enough to awaken appetite
and bring on a wild debauch. The three crimes can in almost every case be
traced back to a neglected childhood.
“My mother died whan I was a bit of a child, an’ my father drank and beat
me,” is the story of nine tenths of these cases, and will remain the
story. The life of a single great tenement house, if told in full, as
it has recently been done, shows how the seed is sown, and what harvest
we may expect, and prison systems, however admirable, can touch but the
smallest proportion of those who come within their walls. And even here,
in this system, which deserves all the eulogy it receives, women have had
but the most meager share of the benefit intended. It is only here and
there that, spurred on by some great souled woman, wrought to white heat
of indignation at the suffering and ignominy heaped upon these weak and
most miserable sisters, there has grown up a better system of treatment,
or a refuge in which reform has been made possible. Even to-day, in
cities where reform is supposed to have perfected itself, there are
Houses of Detention, at the mention of which compassionate judges shake
their heads, and use any and every pretext to avoid condemning, for even
a week, a young girl guilty of some first and slight offense, to their
unspeakably infamous walls. Who enters there leaves hope behind, and
life in any real sense, is over, once for all, for the sad soul that has
learned what awaits it there.
In a little town of Massachusetts, many phases of this question have long
since been answered. The work is so quietly carried forward that few
save those interested in philanthropic problems have any knowledge of
its nature or scope. In the belief that its story will awaken, not only
interest, but stronger faith in the possibilities of reform, its outlines
are given here. From its success grew the greater work which makes the
title of the present article, a work which would have seemed well nigh
impossible had not such demonstration first been made of its entire
feasibility.
Practically, its foundation was laid in Dedham, thirty years or more
ago, where a temporary asylum was afforded to women just discharged from
prison, and much the same methods were adopted in the Springfield “Home
for Friendless Women.” But as one of the most efficient workers wrote at
the time: “The more thoughtful saw from the first that they were working
only at the top of the tree, and must go to the root to accomplish real
good in large measure. The necessity of making the term of imprisonment
one also of instruction, was apparent; also the vital need of purifying
the corrupted by personal contact with pure and good women, laboring
among them in a spirit of love and sympathy.”
It was not until 1870 that, after a preliminary meeting in Boston,
officered by some of her most earnest citizens, a memorial was presented
to the legislature, in which the need was set forth of better prisons for
women, and of a reformatory discipline for all criminals. This was called
“The Memorial of the Temporary Asylum for Discharged Female Prisoners in
Dedham, and of the Springfield Home for Friendless Women and Children,
and of others concurring with them.” The names of Whittier, Henry Wilson,
Bishop Eastburn, and many others equally noble, were affixed, and the
almost immediate result was the establishment of the Prison Commission
of the state, and a few years later, the building of the separate prison
for women at Sherborn. Thirty acres of land were purchased here, and the
prison was placed upon a knoll, from which one of the finest views in
the county may be had, a neighboring pond giving a full supply of pure
water, and the facilities for drainage being excellent. The form chosen
for building was a cross, with two more transverse sections, one at the
front, and one for hospital purposes, at the rear. But forty-eight strong
cells for the more refractory class were built, the majority occupying
small, separate rooms, divided by brick partitions, and each owning a
window. The basement has two large laundries, one for prison, the other
for outside use, the latter bringing in a comfortable income toward
the support of the prison. Over this laundry is the prison kitchen and
bakery, the work in both being done by the prisoners, under supervision.
Above this, in the third story, is the large hall used as a chapel, and
a library adjoining it, while the second story contains two large work
rooms, one for sewing, and the other for making chair bottoms. Sewing
machines are in the first one, and here all the clothing for the prison
is made, as well as a good deal for another institution. A school room is
also on this floor, occupied six hours a day, the women going to it in
classes, each class having an hour’s instruction a day. Here many take
their first lessons in reading and writing; easy arithmetic and geography
are also taught.
The prison has four divisions, for the classification of convicts, the
three higher ones each containing what is known as a “privilege room,”
the prisoners who have obeyed the rules being allowed to spend an hour
each evening under the supervision of the matrons, before they are
locked in for the night. Four cheerful dining rooms are provided, and
unlike the county jails, where prisoners eat alone from a tin pan, the
women gather, under the supervision of matrons, each with neat plate and
basin, learning order and decorum, and in many cases having their first
experience of clean and palatable food. The matrons have comfortable
rooms, commanding a view of the corridors, and a private dining room and
kitchen in the basement. A parlor on the second floor is also at their
disposal, thirty matrons and assistants using it in such intervals of
leisure as come.
The chief officers may be either men or women, at the pleasure of
the Governor, these being superintendent, steward and treasurer, the
remainder being all women, and including a deputy superintendent, a
chaplain, a physician, school mistress, and clerk. The wishes of the
founders were carried out in making the superintendent a woman, Mrs.
Edna C. Atkinson’s name having become the synonym for patient and most
faithful labor in this untried field. There are others as worthy, but
with her, they shrink from any public recognition, content to have laid
silently the foundation of a work which is copied in detail wherever the
same results are desired.
The hospital is a model of its kind, three stories in height, and
thirty-two feet wide by seventy-seven long. The dispensary and wash
room, the doctor’s sitting room and some small wards for special cases
are on the first floor. The second one has a large ward, sunny and airy,
with space for twenty beds, and at one side bath rooms, and a small
room where the dead are laid until burial. The convalescent ward is on
the third floor, and in each and all, is the exquisite neatness which
is a revelation to every occupant. Of the physical misery that finds
alleviation here, one can hardly speak. “Intemperance, unchastity, abuse
from male companions, neglected childbirth, hereditary taints, poor food
and clothing,” have all done their work, and demand all the skill the
physician can bring to bear. The work is hard and often repulsive, but
the sick prisoner is especially susceptible to influence, and often, when
all means have been tried in vain, yields at last under the pressure
of pain and gratitude for its relief, and goes out from the ward a new
creature spiritually as well as physically.
From the beginning they are made to feel that here is one spot where love
and sympathy are certain. There is no convict dress branding them at once
as infamous. Each division has its own; blue check of different patterns
being chosen to distinguish the different grades. The upper ones have
neat white aprons for Sundays. Night dresses and pocket handkerchiefs
are provided to teach neatness, and every woman is required to have
smooth hair and a well-cared-for person. In the nursery, an essential
department of a woman’s prison, the babies show well fed, happy faces,
and are as neatly and warmly clothed as the mothers. This department
has sixty rooms, each ten by twelve, with a bed and crib for mothers
with infants, while above it is a lying-in ward, with all necessary
appliances. Often there is not the slightest hint of maternal instinct,
and the mother must be watched to prevent the destruction of the child,
but more often it is strong, and desire for reform is first awakened with
the longing that the child should know a better life. The bright, clean
quarters, the regular employment, the sympathy and encouragement, on
which, no matter how skeptical or scoffing in the beginning, they come
to depend, all foster this desire. Indifferent even to common decency
in the beginning, unknown instincts awaken, and here is one answer to
the argument sometimes made, that criminals have no right to attractive
quarters. Here, again, the same worker already quoted may speak: “In the
first place, the loss of liberty is a terrible privation, especially when
the term of confinement is long. Most persons will bear any hardship
rather than be confined, even in a pleasant place. The depraved women
of our prisons are indifferent, at first, to the things which please a
higher taste. The dark and filthy slums of Boston are far more charming
to them than the clean and sunny prison. The work is hateful to their
idle habits, and being unpaid, it has no motive to incite them to
performance. The silent, separate rooms, the quiet work room, try them
inexpressibly. There is no danger that the prison will be too tempting.
They long for the intoxicating drink, the low carousals of their usual
life, and when discharged from an ordinary prison, with no reformatory
influence, eagerly rush into the old haunts, and begin anew the foul
life.… Ferocious, indeed, are they, when long habits of intoxication,
joined to ignorance and strong passions, are subjected to the restraints
of a prison.”
“No woman can govern a ferocious woman,” was asserted in the
beginning, by a well known Senator; but that point settled itself
years since, women having proved better able to control women, no
matter how brutalized, than any man has ever been. In one case a woman
was sent from a neighboring prison, who came determined to create
disturbance. Insurrection seemed inevitable, such passion of revolt
had she communicated to many, but wise management quelled it at once.
Three strong men were necessary to convey her from the yard to the
punishment cell, but this was done under the personal direction of the
superintendent, and the men were allowed no violence or abuse. For days
she remained unsubdued; then quieted, and at the end of ten was conquered
and transformed into a quiet, orderly, obedient worker.
“She was that patient and kind she did all she could for me,” was her
comment on the superintendent, and her case is illustrative of dozens of
the same nature. Nothing impresses them more than the unselfish nature
of the care bestowed, and as their skill in manual labor develops,
their interest grows with it, and they begin to take pride in what may
be accomplished. They are ready, when the term of confinement ends, to
lead decent lives, but they must be shielded for a time, else ruin is
inevitable.
Here, then, comes in the mission of a “Wayside Home.” The thought of
such shelter came many years ago, to the man who gave all his life to
making paths plainer for sinning and suffering souls, and who in the
“Isaac Hopper Home,” as often called the “Father Hopper Home,” solved
the problem in a degree. Even here, however, admission was conditioned
on a letter or word of endorsement, and there was no spot in all the
great city in which a homeless and friendless woman, without such word,
could find temporary refuge. It remained for Brooklyn to offer such a
possibility, and the quiet home that in the early spring of 1880 opened
its doors, asked but three questions:
“Do you need help?”
“Are you homeless?”
“If taken in, will you remain a month, keep the necessary rules of the
house, and do your share of its work?”
These question are “the hinge on which the door swings, and when once a
woman crosses its threshold she stands on her honor, and is trusted just
as far as she will allow.”
Cramped for room, dependent upon voluntary contributions for furnishing,
provisions, and all the running expenses of such an undertaking,
the first year found them without debt, and with ninety-nine women
sheltered and protected, sixty-two of whom found places, and, with
but few exceptions, proved faithful and worthy of trust. During the
second year two hundred and twenty-four were helped, cramped quarters
forcing the managers to refuse many applications. Half of the income
for that year was earned by the inmates, in laundry, sewing room, and
days’ work outside. A larger house was taken, but the same principle of
free admission continued. Many who left the Home voluntarily, and some
even who had been expelled, returned, penitent and sorrowful, and were
received again, and given another chance, the only bar to return being in
the discovery that the influence of a woman in some cases did more harm
than could be counteracted in the Home, in which case there is written
across her name, “Not to be admitted again.”
A matron and two assistant matrons are employed, the matron having
general charge of the house, keys, and work; the first assistant, of
sewing room and laundry; and the second of the kitchen and all household
supplies. But thirty women can be accommodated at any one time, and it
is hoped that a building especially for the purpose may soon give the
added facilities so imperatively demanded. The work holds little poetry,
and the expression of some of its subjects is so debased and apparently
hopeless, that one gentleman, accustomed to give freely, remarked: “I see
nothing better to do than to tie a rope round their necks and pitch them
into the river.”
The poor souls were themselves much of his mind, but a month or two gave
a very different aspect to affairs, work and the certainty of sympathy
bringing new life. Undisciplined and weak, in the power of appetite
both inherited and acquired, they have fought battles whose terror the
untempted can never know; fought and won, the roll now holding hundreds
of names. Working against perpetual obstacle and disadvantage, the story
of the five years is one of triumph for managers as well as managed. “We
began,” said one of the workers, “holding in one hand the key to an empty
house, for which the rent was paid for one month, and in the other hand
all our worldly possessions—five dollars—and since that time we have
bought our present home, and furnished it comfortably for our work. It
accommodates thirty-five women, and three matrons, and we have paid on
it $5,000, carrying a mortgage of $9,000. None of these things are the
ultimate of our work. They are but means to an end, and that end the
saving of the lives and souls of these women.”
Effort of as extended a nature is possible only for a body of earnest
workers, but this mere hint of its nature and results may perhaps
convince some who have doubted its possibility, and serve as the clue
to companion methods in country towns. Faith in possibilities, both
human and divine, has been the condition of success for what is already
accomplished, and the village may test these no less than the city.
Reports filled with every practical detail may be had by addressing a
note to “The Wayside Home, 352 Bridge Street, Brooklyn, N. Y.,” and the
writer stands ready, at any time, to answer questions as to methods,
assuring all doubters that, for all patient workers, success is certain.
* * * * *
The finest pleasures of reading come unbidden. In the twilight alcove
of a library, with a time-mellowed chair yielding luxuriously to your
pressure, a June wind floating in at the windows, and in your hand some
rambling old author, good humored and quaint, one would think the Spirit
could scarce fail to be conjured. Yet often, after spending a morning
hour restlessly there … I have strolled off with a book in my pocket to
the woods; and, as I live, the mood has descended upon me under some
chance tree, with a crooked root under my head, and I have lain there
reading and sleeping by turns till the letters were blurred in the
dimness of twilight.—_From Prose Writings of N. P. Willis._