[C.]
In 1868, the Indiana (Friends) Yearly Meeting appointed Mrs. Sarah J. Smith of Indianapolis, and Mrs. Rhoda M. Coffin of Richmond, to visit the prisons of the State, with a view to ascertain the spirit of the management of these institutions, and the moral condition of their inmates. In obedience to this appointment the two ladies visited both of the State prisons of Indiana, and made a particularly thorough examination of the condition of the Southern prison (at Jeffersonville) where all our women convicts were kept. Here they found the vilest immoralities being practiced; they discovered that the rumors which had induced their appointment were far surpassed by the revolting facts.
They visited Gov. Conrad Baker and urged him to recommend the General Assembly to make an appropriation for a separate prison for women. With the full sympathy of Governor Baker, who was not only a most honorable gentleman, but a sincere believer in the equal political rights of women, Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Coffin appeared before the legislature of 1869, and by an unvarnished account of what they had witnessed and learned in the Southern prison, they aroused the legislators to immediate action, and an act to establish a "Reformatory Institution for Women and Girls" was passed at that session (viz., that of 1869). By statute the new institution was located at Indianapolis. It was opened in 1873, the first separate prison for women in this country. Mrs. Sarah J. Smith was made its first superintendent, and she retained that office, discharging all its duties with great ability, until 1883, when upon her resignation she was succeeded by Mrs. Elmina S. Johnson, who had up to that time been associated with Mrs. Smith as assistant superintendent.
The first managing board of women consisted of Mrs. Eliza C. Hendricks (wife of Hon. Thomas A. Hendricks who was governor of Indiana on the opening of the prison), Mrs. Rhoda M. Coffin and Mrs. Emily A. Roach. The changes upon the board have been so infrequent that in addition to those on the first board and to those on the board at present, only three ladies can be mentioned in this connection, viz.: Mrs. Eliza S. Dodd of Indianapolis, Mrs. Mary E. Burson (a banker of Muncie) and Mrs. Sarah J. Smith, who, after resigning the superintendency, served on the board for a brief time.
The board at present consists of Mrs. Eliza C. Hendricks, president, Mrs. Claire A. Walker and Mrs. M. M. James. From the opening of this institution Mrs. Hendricks has been connected with it; first as a member of the advisory board, for eight years a member of the managing board and during a large part of the time its president, she has served its interest with singular fidelity. The position is no sinecure. The purchasing of all the supplies is only a part of the board's work; the business meetings are held monthly and often occupy half a day, sometimes an entire day. These Mrs. Hendricks always attends whether she is in Indianapolis or in Washington; from the latter point she has many times journeyed in weather most inclement by heat and by cold, simply to look after the prison and to transact the business for it imposed by her position on its board. During the last eight years, since women have had control of its affairs, Miss Anna Dunlop of Indianapolis has served the institution as its secretary and treasurer. Perhaps the highest tribute that can be paid to the ability with which Miss Dunlop has discharged the responsible and complicated duties of her double office, lies in the fact that with the General Assembly of the State it has passed into a proverb that "The Woman's Reformatory is the best and most economically managed of the State institutions." The committees appointed to visit the penal institutions always report that "The accounts of the reformatory are kept so accurately that its financial status can always be understood at a glance."
This institution has two distinct departments, the penal and the reformatory, occupying two sides of one main building and joined under one management. Convicts above sixteen years of age are ranked as women and confined in the penal department; those under sixteen years are accounted girls (children) and lodged in the reformatory department.
The average number of girls in the institution from its opening has been 150; the number of women 45. There are now (July, 1885,) over 200 inmates.
All of the work of the institution is done by its inmates. A school is maintained in the building for the children; a few trades are taught the girls; all are taught housework, laundry work, plain sewing and mending; the greatest pains is taken to form in the inmates habits of industry and personal tidiness, and to prepare them to be good servants; and when their period of incarceration has expired, the ladies interest themselves in finding homes and employment for the discharged convicts whom they seek to restore to normal relations to society. The secretary estimates that of those who have been discharged from the institution during the last twelve years, fully seventy-five per cent. have been really restored and are leading honest and industrious lives.
[D.]
Gov. Porter's Biennial Message, 1883: "I recommend that in the department for women in this hospital it shall be required by law that at least one of the physicians shall be a woman. There are now in this State not a few women who bear diplomas from respectable medical colleges, and who are qualified by professional attainments and experience to fill places as physicians in public institutions with credit and usefulness. It would be peculiarly fit that their services should be sought in cases of insanity among members of their own sex."