The prison committee, through its chairman, gave in 1887 an exhaustive report upon the condition of prisons and station houses, and in 1888, through their prison visitor, a female M.D., a careful report, both of which contain items which are strange reading for nineteenth century civilization and progress.
PERSONAL WORK.
In the autumn of 1844, Margaret Fuller Ossoli accepted a position on the New York Tribune, and became an inmate of the Greeley mansion. The prison on Blackwell’s Island was on the opposite side of the river, at a distance easily reached by boat, and Sing Sing was not far off. Margaret was to “write up” these places, and gladly took the first opportunity to visit them. Her biographer says: “She had consorted hitherto with the élite of her sex, she now made acquaintance with the outcasts to whom the elements of womanhood are scarcely recognizable. For both she had one gospel, that of high hope and divine love. She seemed to have found herself as much at home in the office of encouraging the fallen as she had been, when it was her duty to arouse the best spirit in women sheltered from the knowledge and experience of evil by every favoring circumstance.” She herself said of a meeting where she addressed the female prisoners, “All passed, indeed, as in one of my Boston classes.” This was after Mrs. Farnum had been appointed matron, a woman of uncommon character and ability, and the women already showed the results of her intelligent and kindly treatment. Through the letters published in the Tribune, on “Prison Discipline,” “Appeal for an Asylum for Discharged Female Prisoners,” “Capital Punishment,” and others, public attention and interest were awakened, and Mr. Greeley says, “I doubt that our various reformatory institutions had ever before received such wise and discriminating commendation to the favor of the rich as they did from Margaret’s pen during her connection with us.”
Dorothea Dix, of blessed memory, whose specialty seemed the caring for the insane, gave much thought and gracious ministry to those in bonds; and many were indebted to her personal efforts in their behalf, both while in prison and in the trying time of their release. She was also fearless in lifting up her voice against abuses, and in favor of needed reforms. She was so persistent in reiterating her protests, that attention had to be given, and her demands secured changes which are thankfully remembered.
In Rhode Island, as early as 1830, a young and gifted woman, whose heart had been stirred by accounts given by her father, a prominent lawyer, began to visit the institutions of the State; and through a long and eventful life has continued her ministrations. Even now, in her ninety-first year, she has not entirely laid down her work. By voice and pen she has appealed stoutly against wrongs and abuses, and while she has been the spiritual mother of numberless men and women, she has not neglected the financial aid so important to those who emerge from prison life. She was the originator of the “Rhode Island Prisoners’ Aid Association,” and the founder of the “Temporary Industrial Home” for released female prisoners, which was opened in 1880, and bears her name, “The Sophia Little Home.”
Among the special workers should be named Miss Linda Gilbert of New York, who has devoted much time to prison work, and in fifteen years has procured employment for over six thousand ex-convicts; six hundred of the better class of these she has by her own individual aid established in business in a small way, and in speaking of the results of her ventures in thus assisting them, she says, “I am happy to state that not ten per cent. of the number thus aided have turned out unsatisfactorily.” She has also presented twenty-two libraries to prisons in six different States, and among other projects which she hopes to accomplish is the establishing of a national industrial home for ex-convicts, where various branches of labor can be taught and the inmates put in the way of becoming self-supporting. When a little girl of only eight or nine years, she used to visit the prison nearest her home and take some little gift, if only a few flowers, to cheer the prisoners, who learned to look upon her visits to their dark abode as they would a stray sunbeam from heaven.
Elizabeth Comstock, of Michigan, upon whose head in childhood Elizabeth Fry placed her hand as she said the kindly words, “Remember what I tell thee, dear Elizabeth; to be Christ’s messenger to those who know him not, that is the happiest life,” has so well carried out her avowed purpose, “To bear our Father’s message of love and mercy to the largest household on earth, the household of affliction,” that in thirty years, mid duties urgent and varied, she has visited over 120,000 prisoners, awakening hope and giving direction to many lives.
A long list of other names might be added, but our space is otherwise needed.
REFORMATORY PRISONS FOR WOMEN.
In the year of 1873 startling revelations concerning immoralities connected with the Indiana Southern Prison led to the immediate occupancy of the buildings in Indianapolis, which had been under way for two years and which were to be known as “The Reformatory Prison for Women and Girls.” The institution was officered entirely by women, with Mrs. Sarah J. Smith, one of its chief founders, for Superintendent. The project was looked upon as a doubtful experiment, and the speedy relinquishment of the idea prophesied. The board of managers consisted at first of three gentlemen and two lady visitors. In 1887 Governor Williams approved an act of the Legislature by which the general supervision and government were vested in a board of women managers. This was, at that time, and we believe still is, the only governmental prison known, either in the United States or in Europe, under the entire management of women.