New York Training School for Girls in

Hudson Hudson may refer to: People * Hudson (given name) * Hudson (surname) * Henry Hudson, English explorer * Hudson (footballer, born 1986), Hudson Fernando Tobias de Carvalho, Brazilian football right-back * Hudson (footballer, born 1988), Hudso ...

was a

reformatory school A reformatory or reformatory school is a youth detention center or an adult correctional facility popular during the late 19th and early 20th centuries in Western countries. In the United Kingdom and United States, they came out of social concerns ...

, where teenage girls, between the ages of 12 and 16, who were convicted of any form of

juvenile delinquency Juvenile delinquency, also known as juvenile offending, is the act of participating in unlawful behavior as a minor or individual younger than the statutory age of majority. In the United States of America, a juvenile delinquent is a person ...

in New York state were sent. The institution operated between 1904 and 1975. Since 1976 it has been a minimum security prison for young male adults, recently called Hudson Correctional Facility. It is famous for the sociometric research done by

Jacob Moreno Jacob Levy Moreno (born Iacob Levy; May 18, 1889 – May 14, 1974) was a Romanian-American psychiatrist, psychosociologist, and educator, the founder of psychodrama, and the foremost pioneer of group psychotherapy. During his lifetime, he was rec ...

in the 1930s.

History

The reformatory was established in 1904 as the only institution in New York state which could provide training for delinquent girls under the age of 16. The institute took the place and the buildings of the former House of Refuge for Women. It was located on the east side of the Hudson River, with a "famous view" of the

Catskill mountains The Catskill Mountains, also known as the Catskills, are a physiographic province of the larger Appalachian Mountains, located in southeastern New York. As a cultural and geographic region, the Catskills are generally defined as those areas c ...

. In the beginning there were seven, three-story, well-established cottages for 26 girls on average, several sport fields, office buildings and a chapel. The institution was led by a superintendent and each cottage had a teacher and a few officers. The teacher, or "house mother" played the part of the parents, and officials such as kitchen officials were responsible for leading the activity of the girls.

Methods of reformation

Early years

The official aim of the institution was to develop healthy bodily and mental activities in order to make their inmates more likely to "do well after leaving the institution". The "reformation" was based on three pillars. # ''Physical culture'': personalized calisthenics and gymnastics training # ''Education'': four grades of elementary school, introduction to housework, like cooking, ironing, laundry, dressmaking and gardening. # ''Moral and religious introduction'': "The moral instruction is enforced by practice and example rather than by precept". Corporal punishment was strictly prohibited.

The '30s - Moreno and the sociometry

In 1932 there was a pandemic of runaways at the institution: within two weeks 14 girls ran away, which was 30 times more than the average number. At that time the reformatory consisted of 16 cottages. The supreme superintendent,

Fannie French Morse Fannie is a given name. Notable people with the name include: * Fannie B. Damon (1857-1939), American writer, magazine editor * Fannie B. Linderman (1875-1960), British-born American teacher, entertainer, and writer * Fannie Barrier Williams (1 ...

had heard of Jacob Moreno's idea of mapping up societies with natural scientific methods and she had also heard of his successes in the

Sing Sing Sing Sing Correctional Facility, formerly Ossining Correctional Facility, is a maximum-security prison operated by the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision in the village of Ossining, New York. It is about north of ...

prison. After the first meeting she hired Moreno to be the Research Director of the institute. Moreno and his assistant Helen H. Jennings examined 500 girls, their intelligence, social activities and most importantly, their feelings towards each other. Using the method of

sociometry Sociometry is a quantitative method for measuring social relationships. It was developed by psychotherapist Jacob L. Moreno and Helen Hall Jennings in their studies of the relationship between social structures and psychological well-being, and ...

he visualized these connections in several sociograms. The earned experiences and the graphs were published in his seminal book ''Who shall survive?''. As a conclusion he distilled that behind social phenomena there is an inexplicable driving force which is due to the structure of the relationships between individuals. It was true for the girls from Hudson: the runaway reactions were not conscious, rather they behaved how their location in the social network forced them to.

Notable people connected to the institute

Ella Fitzgerald Ella Jane Fitzgerald (April 25, 1917June 15, 1996) was an American jazz singer, sometimes referred to as the "First Lady of Song", "Queen of Jazz", and "Lady Ella". She was noted for her purity of tone, impeccable diction, phrasing, timing, in ...

, world famous jazz singer, spent almost a year in the reformatory. According to the log book she arrived in April 1933 and she ran away at the end of 1933 or the beginning of 1934. *

Marion Palfi Marion Palfi (1907–1978) was a German-American social-documentary photographer born in Berlin. In 1940 she moved from Germany to New York City to escape the Nazi army and their ideologies. Early life Palfi was the daughter of German theater de ...

, photographer, visited the New York Training School for Girls in 1946, and she photographed white girls for her book (''Suffer Little Children'').Palfi, Marion. Suffer Little Children. New York: Oceana Publications.1952 *

, psychologist

References

External links

Prison Public Memory ProjectIncorrigibles
{{coord, 42.2439, -73.7935, type:edu_region:US-NY, display=title Prisons in New York (state) Juvenile law 1904 establishments in New York (state) 1975 disestablishments in New York (state) Buildings and structures in Columbia County, New York History of women in New York (state)