Endowments; Female juvenile delinquents--Rehabilitation; Female juvenile delinquents--Services for; New York (N.Y.); New York Probation and Protective Association; Waverley House (New York, N.Y.); Hadden, Maude Miner, 1880-1967
Format
correspondence
Genre
Business correspondence
Date
[between 1886 and 1919?]
Physical Description
microfilm, 16 mm, b&w
Note (Reel no.)
Reel 81
Note
PDF may contain multiple grant documents.
As a final preventative strategy, Progressive reformers strongly endorsed intervention by professional social workers to keep girls who were already in 'moral danger' from embarking on 'careers' in delinquency. In New York City a number of social serv ice organizations -- the Jewish Board of Guardians, Catholic Charities, the (Episcopal) Church Mission of Help, Big Sisters, and the New York Probation and Protective Association (later the Girls' Services League) -- worked with rebellious or sexually delinquent adolescent females who had been referred to them by parents, teachers, or community leaders. Organized by Maude Miner in 1908, the New York Probation and Protective Association also operated a home for delinquent girls called Waverly House...Hoping to interrupt young women's' descent into delinquency, the agencies adopted the 'individualized' and 'scientific' methods of the emerging social-work profession: trained social workers and volunteers carefully investigated each girl's circumstances, then attempted to 'adjust' parental expectations, schooling, vocational training, employment, and recreation to suit her needs and interests. Over the years, most of these agencies also hired staff psychiatrists and psychologists who conducted mental examinations and studied the 'emotional factors' and 'mental defects,' including 'feebilemindedness,' that contributed to the girls' rebellion and delinquency." [SOURCE: Alexander, Ruth M. The Girl Problem: Female Sexual Delinquency in New York, 1900-1930. Cornell University Press, 1998, pp. 45-46. Google Books, https://books.google.com/books?id=ZPhSVCkFWM0C. Accessed 8 Oct. 2018.]