Education and Deviant Adolescent Women, 1870-1960 –Kelly Maguire

• “The accustomed procession of fallen ones, with its familiar types, has halted at our doors. The waif, the drunkard's daughter, the pretty weak one, the child with inherited taint, the lover of fine dress and of ease,-all these, helpless and ignorant, worsted in the conflict with sin, trampled and crushed in its mire, often only the faint hope of a something better with us, they hardly know what, holding them back from suicide,-all these have come, and to these we have ministered as best we could, in body and soul.”

- -Superintendent of Chicago's Erring Woman's Refuge, 1880

Wayward Women are Contaminating Society& Education

• It was not until the late 1960s that pregnant and “wayward” adolescent girls were permitted to attend school.

• Society wanted to protect its sons and daughters from “contamination” through contact with these “immoral” miscreants of society.

• Policies towards young women almost always focused on the issue of sexual misconduct.

How Does this Differ From the Treatment of Wayward Boys?

• According to the Chicago Public Schools’ Committee on Corrective Education, ‘Boys ‘sow their wild oats’ until they are sick of them and then they are forgiven by society, including the churches, and become laudable citizens. But along their paths may be the wrecks of girls whom society, including the churches, never forgives, lives hopelessly blasted, never even permitted in respectable homes, much less [thought] capable of making them’.”

Deviant Adolescent Girls Fell Into 2 Categories: Redeemable and

Unredeemable

• Redeemable:– Committed a single

mistake– Victims of predatory

men– Viewed as ‘fallen’

women.– Courageous– Unlucky

• Unredeemable:– Older– “hardened”– Sometimes prostitutes

So Many Problems With This Approach…

• For one, leaders of educational programs for wayward girls failed to distinguish between delinquent and dependent adolescents

• In this way, children who were guilty of committing crimes and children who were victims of abuse/ neglect/ victimization were treated in the same manner

• One reason for this was the reality of funding: courts depending on the willingness of private institutions to subsidize & accept private wards

• Whatever private services were offered were superior to any public reformatories or industrial schools

3 Stages of Response To Delinquent & Pregnant Young Girls

*First: Early 19th Century Late 1920s-establishment of evangelical residential homes by Purity Crusaders and organized women’s groups-sought to ‘save’ ‘feeble-minded’ adolescent girls who were attempting to reform themselves, who were often disowned by their families or sexually abused-intermediate care facilities-focus was on large urban areas-girls sought anonymity and a way to recapture their self esteem and respectability-wanted to avoid a life of degradation and despair and repair their ability to become respectable wives someday-hundreds of shamed adolescent girls from small towns boarded trains headed for Chicago or NY to seek a means to escape the stigma of being a ruined adolescent girl

Next Phase..

*Post WWI Early 1960s

-evangelical agencies transform into highly professionalized clinical

programs

-governed by the leaders of the federal charities movement

Stage Three

*Begins in early 1960s

-federal government becomes involved in establishing services for young women

-residential maternity homes transform into community-based comprehensive care clinics

-ineffectual efforts to integrate young unwed mothers into regular classrooms

Problems, Problems…• Purity societies in many cities were known to be extremely anti-male• Reformers consistently cited male aggression to be the culprit of females’

problems w/ pregnancy and delinquency• Viewed females as innocent, vulnerable, and pure• Though urban and rural deviance occurred at comparable rates, ‘life in the

big city’ and increasing urbanization was blamed for young women’s deviance

• The prevailing opinion was that city life tempted young women to demean themselves in countless ways, including dancing, going to the theatre, and going to saloons—”vicious amusements”

• Girls were “whirling down the road to ruin in two-step time”• In order to “hang onto a fella” in the city, women were perceived as having to

pay immoderate attention to vain concern such as personal dress, cosmetics and grooming

• Many adolescent girls living in cities were forced to drop out of school and go to work to help provide for their families—most going into domestic service

• Girls who worked in domestic service had an inordinate amount of pregnancies compared to those who did not work

Residential Reform For Girls, late 19th century

• Intermittent schooling led to the realization that most girls had a only a 5th grade education by the age of 17

• Urban missionaries established programs for sex education, personal hygiene lectures and rehabilitation efforts for young women

• In institutions of residence, women’s names were not used to ensure anonymity

• There was close scrutiny in all aspects on women’s lives—their mail was read, their telephone calls were carefully monitored, and guests were not permitted

• Institutions were grim, restrictive and depressing• Residents were expected to participate in all religious ritual and were also

expected to brood over their misdeeds• Girls were expected to work for 7-10 hours a day in the kitchen, the laundry

room or nursery• Academic classes were added as an afterthought, for the little time these

girls had free• The focus of academic was on the alphabet and “simple sums”