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Maclachlan, H. D. C.

H. D. C. Maclachlan Social reformer, community leader and advocate for juvenile courts Alice W. Campbell   Hugh David Cathcart Maclachlan, D. D. (1869-1929) was born March 16, 1869 in Barrhead, Renfrewshire, Scotland. As a young man, he earned A. M. and B. L. degrees from the University of Glasgow. Then, in 1894, Maclachlan came…

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Petersen, Anna M.

Anna M. Petersen, reformatory superintendent, educator, eugenicist by Alice W. Campbell, Virginia Commonwealth University Libraries   Anna M. Petersen served as superintendent of the Virginia Home and Industrial School for Girls (Bon Air, VA) from 1914 – 1920.  Beginning in October 1916, Petersen took part in organizational meetings that would result in the founding of…

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Light, Mattie McNab

During the past twenty-seven years she has been engaged in religious work, especially devoting her time and talents to evangelistic and rescue work among girls and women. Countless numbers have thus found in her an appreciative and sympathizing friend and a guide and help in time of sorest need.

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Virginia Home and Industrial School for Girls

The Virginia Home and Industrial School for Girls opened in Bon Air, Va., in 1910 as a reform school for the “care and training of incorrigible or vicious white girls … without proper restraint and training, between the ages of eight and eighteen years.”

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Girl Problem Grows – Richmond Times-Dispatch, February 5, 1913. Juvenile Court and Juvenile Protective Society, Richmond, VA

  JUVENILE COURT TRIED 410 CASES Disorderly Conduct with 182 Offenders, Constituted Largest Single Class. GIRL PROBLEM GROWS  Regarded by Juvenile Protective Society as Its Most Difficult Task    In a memorial, just from the press in pamphlet form, the Juvenile Protective Society of Virginia sums up for convenient reference the work accomplished by the juvenile…

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Friends (Quakers) in Prison Reform

This entry was in the files of Charles Richmond Henderson (1848 – 1915), a notable sociologist and prison reformer. The new note that it struck was its emphasis upon the fact that all the interests of society were affected by the existence of the depraved and unfortunate classes, and that therefore the work in their behalf was a social task which must be shared by the whole community.

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Pennsylvania Prison Society

“…their object, as stated in their Preamble was to discover “such degree and modes of punishment” as might restore our “fellow creatures to virtue and happiness.” In the spirit of the Founder of Christianity they proposed to extend compassion toward the fallen by “alleviating” the unwholesome conditions in prisons and by mitigating the “unnecessary severity” of punishments.”

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American Prison Association: Constitution

The American Correctional Association has championed the cause of corrections and correctional effectiveness for over 140 years. Founded in 1870 as the National Prison Association, ACA is the oldest association developed specifically for practitioners in the correctional profession. During the first organizational meeting in Cincinnati, Ohio, the assembly elected then-Ohio Governor and future President Rutherford B. Hayes as the first President of the Association.

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