SPREAD OF WORK.
Reports of the work were taken to other cities, and in 1839 the society became national in name, with vice-presidents in seventeen different States, and in the next few years, particularly in New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, we find the women prominent in anti-slavery and other reforms, giving special thought and personal efforts, toward the amelioration of the condition of persons confined in our various institutions. Thus quietly was the leaven working in many places, hindered, hampered, and limited by prejudice against woman’s work, and the fear of their seeing too much, if once admitted and allowed the privilege of inspection.
It is recorded, that on one of the ladies being denied the opportunity which she sought of seeing and ministering to a sick female prisoner, while a minister was allowed to go in and on his asking the reason of it, “Why,” said the official, “it wouldn’t have done, she’s too sharp; she wouldn’t have come in here and just prayed and gone away about her business as you have; she’d wanted to know the cause”; and another time when those in authority had been solicited by a public-spirited gentleman to grant permission for women to go in and out these places on their errands of mercy, they explained their refusal by saying, “That until the State was ready to expend money enough for several changes, it would only be inviting trouble to have such women spying round and seeing everything, as they were sure to do.”