MARIAN J. MORTON
"Go and Sin No More": Maternity
Homes in Cleveland, 1869-1936
In 1869 the Woman's Christian
Association of Cleveland founded
the Retreat, the first of the city's
maternity homes and refuges for
women who had "lost the glory of
their womanhood."1 Its founders
sought to emulate Christ's injunction to
Mary Magdalen: "Woman,
sin no more; thy faith hath saved
thee."2 As its name suggests, the
Retreat was a shelter, a refuge, in
which the fallen woman, both vic-
tim and sinner, could be saved and
reclaimed through evangelical re-
ligion, the ministrations of pious
women, and the learning of domestic
skills and virtues. In 1936 the Retreat
closed, victim of the hard times
of the Depression, the rising costs of
medical care, and lessened de-
mand for the kind of services it
provided.
In the intervening years, five more
facilities for unwed mothers,
similar to the Retreat in their initial
goals and strategies, opened in
Cleveland: St. Ann's Maternity Home and
Infant Asylum in 1873; the
Salvation Army Rescue Home in 1892; the
Maternity Home in 1892;
the Florence Crittenton Home in 1912,
and another Salvation Army
facility, the Mary B. Talbert Home, in
1925. All these institutions un-
derwent significant changes in the years
1869 to 1936. All joined the
Cleveland Federation for Charity and
Philanthropy, becoming part
of a network of secular social welfare
agencies and conforming to the
standards imposed by the Federation and
by Ohio laws regulating
maternity homes and hospitals. Fees and
admission policies were
standardized; their staffs became more
professional. All officially
adopted the current explanations for
unwed motherhood which at-
Marian J. Morton is Professor of History
at John Carroll University. This article was
written, in part, with aid from a
National Endowment for the Humanities summer
stipend.
1. Woman's Christian Association, Annual
Report 1870, 15, MS 3516, Western Re-
serve Historical Society. Hereinafter
this collection will be referred to as YWCA Cleve-
land, since the collection is titled
after the group's later name.
2. Mary Ingham, Women of Cleveland
and Their Work: Philanthropic, Educational,
Literary, Medical and Artistic (Cleveland, 1893), 151.
118 OHIO
HISTORY
tributed it to unwholesome environment
or mental deficiency; all
gradually shifted much of their
attention from the unwed mother to
her illegitimate child. Three homes
became hospitals, specializing in
obstetrical care.
In short, maternity homes reflected the
secularization and profes-
sionalization of benevolence and reform
during the first decades of
this century. However, despite the shift
from mission to medical fa-
cility, from pious volunteer to trained
social worker, the homes re-
tained much of the emphasis on
reformation which marked their
religious origins. Their objectives and
tactics remained remarkably
constant through the 1930s: to rescue
and save their erring inmates
by sheltering them from the vicious
world, to reclaim them for and
by the morality of middle-class
womanhood.3
The Retreat
The Retreat was a product of the
evangelical benevolence of post-
Civil War Protestantism and remained
true to this heritage through-
out its lifetime.4 The
Woman's Christian Associations in Cleveland
and elsewhere were formed as adjuncts to
the Young Men's Christian
3. On the professionalization and
secularization of benevolence and reform, see
Robert H. Bremner, From the Depths:
The Discovery of Poverty in the United States
(New York, 1956); Roy Lubove, The
Professional Altruist: The Emergence of Social
Work as a Career, 1880-1930 (Cambridge, Mass., 1965), and for a discussion of those
trends in Cleveland, Clara Kaiser,
"Organized Social Work in Cleveland, Its History
and Setting" (Ph.D. dissertation,
The Ohio State University, 1936). On the impact
of Federations of Charity and
Philanthropy, see Judith Ann Trolander, Settlements
Houses and the Great Depression (Detroit, 1975), which discusses Cleveland specifi-
cally. David J. Rothman in Conscience
and Convenience: The Asylum and Its Alterna-
tives in Progressive America (Boston, Toronto, 1980) describes attempts at institutional
flexibility during the Progressive
period, which I do not find in the maternity homes,
but concedes that the Progressives never
abandoned their moralistic approach to re-
form, 5-6, 52-53. Katherine G. Aiken,
"The National Florence Crittenton Mission,
1883-1925: A Case Study in Progressive
Reform" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of
Washington, 1980) also finds greater
change in the homes than I do. The penal institu-
tions described in Estelle B. Freedman, Their
Sisters' Keepers: Women's Prison Re-
form in America, 1830-1930 (Ann Arbor, 1981), sadly-and surely unintentionally-
most closely resemble Cleveland's
maternity homes during the period, 1869-1936;
these prisons, for example, encouraged
inmates to keep their children in order to de-
velop their own maternal instincts and
stressed moral, religious and domestic training,
89-96.
4. The founders of Cleveland's Retreat
resemble the "benevolent ladies" of Chi-
cago in their interests and activities,
as in Kathleen D. McCarthy, Noblesse Oblige:
Charity and Cultural Philanthropy in
Chicago, 1849-1929 (Chicago and
London, 1982).
On nineteenth century refuges, see
Steven L. Schlossman, Love and the American De-
linquent: The Theory and Practice of
"Progressive" Juvenile Justice, 1825-1920 (Chica-
go, 1977), 34-41.
"Go and Sin No More" 119
Associations. (The Cleveland WCA became
the YWCA in 1893.) In
Cleveland, for example, the founding of
the WCA was inspired by a
visiting YMCA speaker who urged those
women present to do "prac-
tical work."5 The YMCA's
promoted preaching and tract distribu-
tion but also built residential
institutions for young men in the city,
attempting there and with uplifting
classes to reach and teach up-
wardly mobile white-collar workers the
values of middle-class
Protestantism.6
The WCA shared this interest in
missionary work combined with
institution-building. The Retreat was,
in fact, the second institution
built by the Cleveland WCA, the first
being a home for young work-
ing women. The WCA's goals were broad
and all-encompassing:
"The spiritual, moral, mental,
social and physical welfare of the
women in our midst."7 Of
particular concern were "young women
who are dependent on their own exertions
for support,"8 who had
come to the city during the Civil War in
search of job opportunities
created by the War and by the city's
burgeoning economy. The
WCA founders were pillars of their
several Protestant churches, and
their first annual meeting in 1869 drew
600 interested Cleveland wom-
en. This group would remain in the
forefront of the city's female be-
nevolent and reform activities through
the 1930s.
The rationale for the Retreat stated
clearly its founders' percep-
tions of their less fortunate sisters'
moral and physical frailty: "In the
bustle and activity of the age, the
women are following hard after the
men. Not satisfied with their quiet
country homes, many of them
press their way to the cities. What should
be done to care for these
women? Be they never so pure, they are
liable to fall into disgrace
and sin, and they must be tenderly
watched over and cared for."9
Mary Ingham, participant in and
historian of many women's activities
in Cleveland, described the Retreat as a
"mission with the Scarlet
Letter,"10 revealing
both the religious purpose and the Victorian
sexual morality which would characterize
the home. The Retreat's
first nine inmates were described as
"well-behaved, industrious,
5. Mildred Esgar, "Women Involved
in the Real World: A History of the Young
Women's Christian Association of Cleveland, Ohio,
1868-1968," unpublished type-
script at the Western Reserve Historical
Society, Cleveland, Ohio, 35.
6. Charles H. Hopkins, A History of
the YMCA in North America (New York, 1951),
192.
7. Esgar, "Women Involved,"
41.
8. Ibid., 42.
9. YWCA, Cleveland, newspaper clipping,
1869, in scrapbook, Container 11.
10. Ingham, Women of Cleveland, 151.
120 OHIO HISTORY
and thankful for protection and
sympathy. They are being taught to
sew, to sing, and we trust, to
pray."11
Despite its religiosity, however, the
YWCA was never willing to
leave the fate of its clients solely to
God's will, nor to blame a wom-
an's loss of virtue solely upon her
moral weakness; hence, the persis-
tent concern with training women to earn
their own livings so that
they would not be seduced for money into
prostitution or sexual mis-
conduct. Given the limited options in
this period for women, espe-
cially working-class women, the YWCA's
emphasis on domestic serv-
ice and skills such as sewing and
millinery made sense. The
significance of the Retreat for the community
is indicated by the do-
nation to it of $400 from the Cleveland
city council although most of
its funding and donations always came
from private sources.12
The Retreat at first sheltered not only
unwed mothers but women
suspected or guilty of sexual
misbehavior. Their conversion was to
be achieved through Bible classes, daily
prayers, and the "Chris-
tian" atmosphere of the home. For
example, in 1873, according to a
newspaper description of the new
facility, its walls were hung with
"embroidered mottos: 'Through
Christ we hope,' 'God is our refuge
and our strength,' 'Christ for all, all
for Christ.' "13 Retreat
founders,
however, did not claim to work miracles,
noting sadly in 1872 that
some of the inmates had "returned
to their former lives of sin, and
that is the experience of every
institution, but a larger proportion than
heretofore have been saved."14
Retreat managers kept careful track of
their clientele. The 1882 fig-
ures, for example, show that 99 girls
were admitted during the year;
of these, 21 were "returned to
friends"; 24 were "furnished with sit-
uations" (domestic service jobs);
three were dismissed for bad con-
duct; one was sent to school; two were
married. Of the 54 babies
born, 27 were adopted, nine were taken
away with their mothers,
four died, and the remainder were still
sheltered at the home.15
These numbers indicate a rapid turnover
and a short stay for the girls
as well as the institution's role as an
adoption agency, for at this time
there were few other child- or
women-caring facilities in the city.
This situation would change dramatically
in the next twenty years.
As late as 1891, however, the Retreat
felt not only alone but embat-
tled in its mission to save fallen
women; their annual report com-
11. YWCA, Cleveland, Annual Report, 1870,
15, Container 8.
12. Ibid., 17
13. Ibid., newspaper clipping, no
date, in scrapbook, Container 11.
14. Ibid., Annual Report, 1872,
3, Container 8.
15. Ibid., "Minutes," November 7, 1882, Container 1.
"Go and Sin No More" 121
plained that philanthropists gave to
other institutions but not to the
Retreat: "Frequently we are asked,
'Do you not feel that you are en-
couraging vice while harboring,
sheltering, and protecting these
girls?' We are simply giving them a
chance to do better .... What
shall we believe but that the Father
mercifully pardons all our iniqui-
ties, transgressions, and sins?"16
By 1900 the Retreat described itself no
longer as a mission or a ref-
uge, but as a "reformatory home for
girls who are in absolute need of
shelter and friends."17 Applicants
were required to stay six months,
which would become standard policy for
all maternity homes. Refor-
mation presumably took longer than
simple conversion although the
Retreat's strategies were similar for
both. "We try to make our Home
the 'House Beautiful' of which we read
in Bunyan's Pilgrim's Prog-
ress, a haven between the Hill of Difficulty and the Valley
of Tempta-
tion. When the girls leave the home,
they are better armed for life's
difficulties than when they came to us,
having been taught, advised,
and shown the pathway to right
living."18
The lessened overt religiosity may have
been due to the establish-
ment of three competing maternity homes
and other hospital facilities
for unwed mothers by the turn of the
century. Equally significant,
the Retreat, like these other
institutions, sought the approval of the
Committee on Benevolent Associations of
the Cleveland Chamber of
Commerce. The Committee's approval
guaranteed an institution's re-
spectability and access to funding. This
Committee also set up the
Federation for Charity and Philanthropy
in 1913, which raised and
distributed funds for those of the
myriad of Cleveland charities
which met the Federation's standards.
For example, Federation
members were required to raise funds
from Clevelanders without re-
gard for "religious,
denominational, or other special affiliation."19
The Federation (which became the Welfare
Federation in 1917) in
turn formed the Conference on
Illegitimacy, which the maternity
homes joined and which had counterparts
in several other cities; its
purpose was to establish uniform and
sound policies for the care of
unwed mothers and their children. The
trend toward uniformity was
spurred also by the 1908 passage of an
Ohio law regulating maternity
homes and hospitals.
16. Ibid., Annual Report, 1891,
19, Container 8.
17. Ibid., Annual Report, 1900,
87.
18. Ibid., Annual Report, 1909, 11, Container 9.
19. Cleveland Federation for Charity and
Philanthropy, The Social Year Book: The
Human Problems and Resources of
Cleveland (Cleveland, 1913), 26.
122 OHIO HISTORY
These pressures for conformity were
illustrated in 1916 when the
Retreat's managers asked a panel to make
recommendations for the
home, presumably at the urging of the
Conference on Illegitimacy.
The panel commended the institution's
"cleanliness, home-like life,
and efficient management," as well
as its excellent infant mortality
record. However, if the home wished to
ensure being licensed, the
panel suggested that the girls be
required to undergo a Wasserman
test for venereal disease and that the
home employ a social case
worker to investigate "the stories
of the girls and their life after leav-
ing the place."20 The
managers quickly took steps to implement these
suggestions. In addition, reflecting the
prevalent view that "mentality
and morality were closely
connected," they planned to administer
mental tests as well. The Federation
agreed to help finance these ad-
ditional expenses.21
The Federation's Social Yearbook, published
in in 1913, indicated
the Retreat's growing specialization in
medical and child-care, two
further concerns of the Conference on
Illegitimacy: The Retreat's pur-
pose was to provide "medical and
surgical treatment of the unmar-
ried mother," and to help her to
"make the best possible plan for
the future of the innocent babe, whether
that be a life with the
mother, or in an adopted home deemed
worthy after careful investi-
gation." Yet the reformatory goal
remained, for the Retreat was also
to "bring [the unwed mother] to a
right view of life and a proper self-
respect, to start her in some honorable
way of self-support."22
In 1921 the Retreat, after building a
new facility, was incorporated
separately from the Cleveland YWCA, in
keeping with the YWCA
policy of encouraging its institutions
to become completely independ-
ent. The Retreat remained active in the
Conference on Illegitimacy
and worked with other social welfare
agencies such as the Cleveland
Humane Society, which was primarily a
child-placing agency, and
did the case work for the maternity
homes. The Retreat's regimen
broadened by the mid-1920s to include
some recreation and outdoor
games and classes by a visiting public
school teacher; there was still
instruction in house-keeping and
child-care. Like the other homes,
the Retreat still insisted that a woman
stay in the home with her
child for six months, partly because
this was felt to be healthier for
the child since the mother could nurse
it, but also because the care
of the child would aid in the
reformation of the mother: "this love
20. YWCA, Cleveland, Board of Trustees
Minutes, April 18, 1916, Container 2.
21. Ibid., October 17, 1916.
22. Cleveland Federation for Charity and
Philanthropy, The Social Yearbook, 61.
"Go and Sin No More" 123
for her child is a big element in
character-building-working for her
child gives the mother an aim in life
which makes her stronger."23
This belief in the redemptive quality of
mothering was shared by the
other maternity homes.
The Retreat's policies changed little in
the 1930s. Although "sec-
ond offenders" were no longer
turned away, Retreat managers ex-
plained that this was because such girls
could especially benefit from
the "care and training" which
the home provided. Mental and psy-
chiatric tests were required during the
six-month stay. The home
did not offer much vocational training
since most inmates had not fin-
ished grade school, but "all [were]
taught to sew.... During their
stay they [were] taught to darn, repair,
and make their own baby's
clothes [and] their own hats. We feel
that a girl gains much in self-
respect by being neatly dressed, and
that self-respect is a great step
in reformation."24
The Retreat had fewer and fewer inmates
during the early 1930s.25
In February, 1936, the Retreat's
representative to the Council on Ille-
gitimacy pled for additional financial
assistance, reaffirming the ne-
cessity of maternity homes where a girl
"would receive good care,
discipline, and training."26 Three
months later the Retreat closed its
doors forever.
St. Ann's Maternity Home and Infant
Asylum
There are two versions of the first
patient at St. Ann's Maternity
Home and Infant Asylum; one describes
her as a "good respectable
widow," the other, perhaps more
accurately, simply as "an unwed
mother."27 Whatever the
precipitating event or person, the more
general explanation for the founding in
1873 of the maternity home
which became St. Ann's Hospital was the
growth of Cleveland's
Catholic population and the penchant for
institution-building of the
city's first Catholic bishop, Amadeus
Rappe. St. Ann's remained a
23. Federation for Community Planning,
Cleveland, Ohio (hereinafter referred to as
FCP), MS 3788, Western Reserve
Historical Society, Conference on Illegitimacy, De-
cember 14, 1925, Container 30, Folder
739.
24. Ibid., December 8, 1930,
Container 30, Folder 720.
25. Ibid., Children's Council,
Committee on Unmarried Mothers, August 14, 1936,
Container 33, Folder 829.
26. Ibid., February 5, 1936.
27. Sister Stanislaus Clifford,
"History," unpublished typescript in Archives of the
Sisters of Charity of St. Augustine, Mt.
Augustine Convent, Richfield, Ohio (hereinaf-
ter referred to as Mt. Augustine);
"Important Events, St. Ann's Hospital," unpub-
lished typescript, Mt. Augustine. Both
sources undated and unpaged.
124 OHIO HISTORY
Catholic service institution,
administered and controlled by religious
personnel and Catholic doctrine during
its century-long lifetime.
It was at Rappe's instigation that the
first four Sisters of Charity of
St. Augustine were persuaded to come to
the wilderness outpost of
Cleveland in 1851 from their native
France, where they had estab-
lished a tradition of nursing and
medical service. The small band of
nuns quickly established Cleveland's
first public hospital and an or-
phanage for boys. This hospital was
short-lived, but in 1865 in the
wake of the Civil War, the Order founded
St. Vincent Charity Hospi-
tal, still a major medical facility.28
The War had spurred the growth of
Cleveland's commerce and in-
dustry, and the city's population
doubled between 1860 and 1870.29
Many of these newcomers were Catholic,
straining the capacities of
the existing Catholic welfare
institutions. Cleveland's new bishop,
Richard Gilmour, saw the need for new
facilities, including St. Ann's.
Gilmour was initially reluctant to
endorse a home for unwed mothers,
feeling that this would suggest an
endorsement of unwed mother-
hood,30 but the city's
long-standing rivalry between Catholics and
Protestants helped change his mind.
According to one account, a
Catholic woman had been admitted to the
Retreat in 1872 and fallen
victim to its vigorous proselytising. As
she lay dying, a Catholic
priest, accompanied by her father,
sought admission in order to ad-
minister the last sacraments. However,
"both were denied admission
and were told at the door that 'the girl
had confessed her sins to Je-
sus!'"31 Gilmour's
response was to encourage the building of St.
Ann's behind Charity Hospital.
A Catholic maternity home could also be
justified by the
Church's opposition to birth control and
abortion, options more
available to non-Catholic women.
Accordingly, St. Ann's was also a
foundling home and orphanage, which
housed not only illegitimate
but abandoned and neglected children;
child-care would always be
an important part of the work of the
Sisters. From its founding to
1899, St. Ann's cared for 4000 children,
either born or placed
there.32
28. Donald P. Gavin, In All Things
Charity: A History of the Sisters of Charity of St.
Augustine, Cleveland, Ohio, 1851-1954 (Milwaukee, 1955), 3-20.
29. William Ganson Rose, Cleveland,
The Making of a City (Cleveland and New
York, 1950), 361.
30. Gavin, In All Things, 52.
31. Michael J. Hynes, History of the
Diocese of Cleveland: Origin and Growth (Cleve-
land, 1953), 168.
32. Gavin, In All Things, 71.
"Go and Sin No More" 125 |
|
St. Ann's intended to save both mothers and children. According to Sister Stanislaus, an early chronicler of the order's activities, in the hospital "mothers are shielded and helped to rise from their fall. . . . Rarely was it heard of after the house was opened that in- fants were destroyed by their natural mothers, or others, to conceal a crime; thus adding to their first sin, a second of murder."33 The ba- bies were baptized, unless they had been so before their abandon- ment. The mothers were proselytised as well. Although the women allegedly preserved their anonymity, they were the objects of the prayerful scrutiny of the nuns, "who not only bestow upon them tem- poral blessings but also fervently and silently pray that the fallen one, like Magdalen, may repent and return to grace."34 As the official his- torian of the Cleveland Diocese explained, in words that echo those of the Retreat managers, "A censorious world may say, this [materni- ty home] is fostering crime; but no, it is the Saviour's own method; 'Woman, neither will I condemn thee. Go, and now sin no more.' It
33. Clifford, "History," n.p. 34. "Woman's Work. The Noble Institution Conducted in Cleveland by the Sisters of Charity," unpublished typescript, 1893, at Mt. Augustine. |
126 OHIO HISTORY
saves many a poor victim from the scorn
of a pitiless world and keeps
the escutcheon of family honor
untarnished."35
St. Ann's, however, was also a medical
facility. In 1899 a school of
nursing was established with a specialty
in obstetric nursing.36 Al-
though closely connected with St.
Vincent Charity Hospital, St.
Ann's also developed links with the
Western Reserve University
Medical School by the early 1900s;
students from Western Reserve
were permitted to observe confinements,
and the hospital by-laws
stipulated that the resident physician
had to be a graduate of the
Medical School.37
St. Ann's had always taken a few married
patients, and this num-
ber grew as Cleveland's Catholic population
increased and as it be-
came more acceptable to give birth in a
hospital. Since many of these
married patients could pay, the hospital
encouraged their patronage,
but separated them from the unwed
mothers: "There is no inter-
course except going back and forth
through the yard." Neither did
the married women apparently need the
spiritual direction still of-
fered to their unmarried counterparts,
who once a month were urged
to go to confession and communion and
every evening went to chapel.
Some even joined the Sisters of the Good
Shepherd. Non-Catholics
were not required to attend religious
services, but there were proba-
bly few of these women.38 In
1918 a separate building, Loretta Hall,
was built for the unwed mothers, ensuring
that the married women
would not come into contact with less
virtuous womanhood.
Like the Retreat, St. Ann's joined the
Federation of Charity and
Philanthropy and the Conference on
Illegitimacy, which created
again the pressure to meet the
Federation's standards for child-and
maternal-care. St. Ann's also joined
Cleveland Catholic Charities
and sent representatives to the National
Conference of Catholic Char-
ities established in 1910. In many
respects, the Catholic Conference
adhered to secular social work
standards, emphasizing the desira-
bility of keeping mother and child
together for six months rather
than placing the child up for adoption.39
On the other hand, the
35. George F. Houck, A History of
Catholicity in Northern Ohio and in the Diocese of
Cleveland, Vol. 1 (Cleveland, 1903), 739-40.
36. Gavin, In All Things, 75.
37. "By-Laws Governing the Visiting
Staff of St. Ann's Infant Asylum and Maternity
Home," undated, in the Archives of
the Catholic Diocese, Cleveland, Ohio (herein-
after referred to as Diocesan Archives).
38. "Official Visitation of St.
Ann's Infant Asylum and Maternity Hospital, October
26, 1910," in Diocesan Archives.
39. Proceedings of the National
Conference on Catholic Charities (Washington,
D.C., 1910), 303.
"Go and Sin No More" 127
Catholic Church's stand on some issues
influenced its thinking on
maternity home policy. The Church, like
the Conference on Illegiti-
macy, supported the rights of the
illegitimate child to financial sup-
port from the father and at the same
time emphasized that it was
strongly opposed to pre-marital or
extra-marital sex and to the use of
contraceptives and abortion.40
Throughout the 1920s the medical focus
of the hospital sharp-
ened, particularly on its pediatric
care. St. Ann's specialized in the
care of premature infants, priding
itself on the special diet developed
by the chief of pediatrics.41
In 1926 Bishop Joseph Schrembs deed-
ed the hospital property to the Sisters,
who incorporated it separate-
ly from the diocese. The articles of
incorporation made clear the
medical orientation: "Said
corporation is formed for the purpose of
establishing, maintaining and conducting
a hospital for medical and
surgical treatments of persons,
conducting a training school for nurses
and granting diplomas to nurses
graduated therefrom; engaging in re-
search work in medicine, surgery, and
kindred subjects..., main-
taining a public dispensary and other
departments for social serv-
ice." 42
The "Golden Jubilee Bulletin,"
celebrating the hospital's fiftieth
anniversary, also noted that "To
the unmarried mother, who many
times spends from six to eight months in
the institution before her
delivery, splendid prenatal care is
given.... From the time of her
entrance she is under very careful
medical supervision."43 The intent
to reform and save, however, is evident
in the long confinement prior
to the woman's delivery, especially
since it was still considered desir-
able that she remain in the hospital for
six months after her delivery
as well.
The religious thrust of the Catholic
maternity homes in general and
St. Ann's in specific survived into the
1930s. A paper delivered be-
fore the National Conference of Catholic
Charities in 1931 spoke of
the objectives of the care of unmarried
mothers: "first, to safeguard
the faith and ensure the spiritual
welfare of both mother and child;
secondly, to effect a social adjustment
which will as nearly as possi-
ble restore normal conditions."44
In the same year, the director of a
40. Ibid., 1918, 166-68.
41. Ibid., 1925, 122;
"Important Events," n.p.
42. Letter to Reverend Mother M.
Clementine from George F. Quinn, January 8,
1953, in Diocesan Archives.
43. "Golden Jubilee Bulletin, St.
Ann's Infant Asylum and Hospital," 1923, n.p., at
Mt. Augustine.
44. Proceedings, 1931, 109.
128 OHIO HISTORY |
|
Catholic maternity hospital in Pittsburgh explained illegitimate preg- nancy this way: "Many of these girls have become careless in their religious obligations, neglecting confession and Holy Communion, but after they have made their peace with God, that calm quiet con- tentment enters into their whole being-then they are ready to begin the uplift of their lives."45 Bishop Schrembs, commemorating the hospital's sixtieth anniversary in 1933, expressed sentiments which were reminiscent of the late nineteenth-century religiosity and Victo- rianism present at the maternity home's founding:the unwed mother, "more sinned against than sinned," would rather bear the shame of her illicit pregnancy than "stain her hands with the blood of her un- born child. The Church takes her in, lovingly throws the cloak of charity about her, shelters her from the scorn of the world and lets her bring forth her precious burden-even though that burden be the burden of sin."46 Although the Bishop's sermon should not be interpreted as des-
45. Ibid., 120. 46. "Excerpts from the address given by the Rt. Rev. Joseph Schrembs," unpub- lished typescript, 1933, at Mt. Augustine. |
"Go and Sin No More" 129
criptive of reality, other evidence also
indicated the lingering
strength of this desire to rescue the
fallen. The 1935 Report of the Di-
vision of Children of the Ohio
Department of Public Welfare de-
scribed St. Ann's large medical staff,
its case workers and resident
psychiatrist and an "institutional
and impersonal atmosphere," sug-
gesting that the hospital had modernized
its approach to its clien-
tele.47
On the other hand, the Report advised
that the term "asylum" no
longer be used to describe Loretta
House. Further, the Report re-
vealed how important religion still was.
For the overwhelmingly
Catholic inmates, the hospital provided
"Sunday mass, religious in-
struction, as well as efforts to build
up the religious life at home." Re-
ligion was "stressed as a means of
helping the girls face their future
problems," and their
"spiritual adjustment" was guided by the
chaplain and the Sisters, as well as by
social workers.48 Only the so-
cial worker would have been an
unfamiliar face in 1873.
The Salvation Army Rescue Home
The Salvation Army opened its first
maternity home in the United
States in New York City in 1886,
advertising it as "The Rescue Home
for the fallen and falling . . . for
young women who desire and are
earnestly seeking the salvation of their
bodies and souls."49 This
same philosophy guided the Army's
Cleveland Rescue Home
opened in 1892. Although this home
became Booth Memorial Hospi-
tal, a medical facility specializing in
obstetrics, it retained through
the 1930s the original goal of
reformation and conversion of its fallen
women.
The Salvation Army, founded in 1878 in
England by William
Booth, was an effort to solve through
religion the human problems
created by rapid urbanization. Its
analysis of those problems was in-
dividual and moral rather than political
or social; its solution was the
salvation of the urban dweller through
conversion and "practical
holiness."50 Like the
YMCA which it resembled in its evangelical
thrust, the Army built institutions for
the unfortunate. Unlike the
47. Report filed for Child Caring
Agencies and Institutions by the Division on Chil-
dren, Department of Public Welfare,
State of Ohio, 1935, in Diocesan Archives, 2-7.
48. Ibid., 2, 38-42.
49. Herbert A. Wisbey, Jr., Soldiers
Without Swords: A History of the Salvation
Army in the United States (New York, 1955), 100.
50. Edward H. McKinley, Marching to
Glory: The History of the Salvation Army in
the United States (New York, 1980), 58-59, 34.
130 OHIO HISTORY
YMCA, however, whose intended clientele
tended to be middle-
class and "worthy" of
benevolence, the Army wished to cast a wide
net, working "for the spiritual,
moral and physical reformation of the
working classes; for the reclamation of
the vicious, criminal, disso-
lute, and degraded; for visitation
among the poor and the sick; for
the preaching of the Gospel and the
dissemination of Christian truth
by means of open-air and indoor
meetings.' "51
The Army's sense of fellowship, fostered
by its striking uniforms
and a shared life of austere
missionizing, appealed particularly to
newcomers to cities, cast adrift from
family and community.52 Cleve-
land was a city of such newcomers in
1889 when the Army estab-
lished headquarters there. Cleveland's
population increased forty
percent from 1880 to 1890; more than a
third of this population was
foreign-born.53 With this
growth came ever more visible poverty;
Clevelanders responded with the
establishment of the Charity Or-
ganization Society in 1881 and
Associated Charities in 1884 for the
more efficient distribution of outdoor
relief. The Army's response
was a relief department, shelters for
homeless men, a fresh air camp
for children, and the Rescue Home of
1892.
According to the Home's founder, Colonel
Mary Stillwell, its be-
ginnings were almost accidental. She
and her husband, with their
three children, had been assigned to
gospel work in Cleveland, and
at a meeting in 1892 at which the
scheduled speaker did not appear
and the Army band had played long
enough, Stillwell made an im-
promptu and impassioned request for
funds to house the four home-
less women she had already taken under
her wing. Like Army offi-
cials elsewhere, she was able to enlist
the support of influential
members of the community, and within a
few weeks the Rescue
Home was underway.54 The
Cleveland Plain Dealer wrote approving-
ly of its officers and their work:
"Night after night the devoted wom-
en of the rescue home walk the streets
of the 'red light' district
seeking to save their lost 'sisters.'
Through the vilest slums they pass
unharmed, at any hour of the night.
Their lives seem to be charmed,
as no one, not even the most vicious,
has ever offered to do them
harm. They say they believe that 'God
has given his angels charge
concerning them.' "55 At its
outset, then, the Home, like other Army
51. Ibid., 83.
52. Ibid., 47.
53. Rose, Cleveland, 427.
54. Colonel Mary Stillwell, "The
Origin of Booth Memorial Home and Hospital in
Cleveland, Ohio," unpublished
typescript, unpaged.
55. Cleveland Plain Dealer, clipping,
no date, unpaged.
"Go and Sin No More" 131
institutions, sheltered all comers. This
and the other rescue homes
"were not related primarily to
health care or to unmarried mothers.
The doors were opened to the drug
addict, the homeless, the prosti-
tute, and those referred by the
courts."56
The Rescue Home's first annual report
displayed its primarily evan-
gelical purpose, as well as the
conventional justification for its work:
"Hitherto it has been quite in
order to work for the rescue of fallen
men, and redeemed manhood has been
welcomed into society again
as though he had never been a drunkard
or a debauchee. But very
little effort has been made to save
fallen women, because of the pre-
vailing idea that women seldom if ever
can be reclaimed, and if she is
lifted up, she cannot be trusted, etc.,
etc." The report boasted of
women the home had successfully
rescued-a drunkard, a college
student, an opium addict-and asked
rhetorically, " . . . what minis-
ter or missionary is there who would not
be proud to say they could
lay their hands on as many truly
converted souls as our Rescue offi-
cers can show?"57 In
1904 Rescue administrators claimed that 90
percent of its 2294 inmates that year
had been "reclaimed."58 As in
the YWCA's Retreat, the women were
taught sewing and other do-
mestic skills so that they could earn an
honest living, usually in do-
mestic service, after their dismissal. A
photograph from the Army's
national report of 1900 shows a
"group of girls at work" in the Cleve-
land home, gathered around a table piled
high with unfinished gar-
ments.59
Gradually the rescue homes began to
specialize in the care of
unwed mothers, which brought with it an
emphasis on medical care
and facilities.60 In
Cleveland, for example, the first home became
cramped, and in 1906 a new home was
built on Kinsman Street,
which accomodated 50 women. This
facility included a Maternity
Department, "planned and furnished
with every facility for taking
the very best care of our
patients," as well as a nursery so that
mother and child could be kept together.
The staff included a
56. Karl E. Nelson, "The
Organization and Development of the Health Care System
of the Salvation Army in the United
States of America" (unpublished thesis, 1973,
Brengle Memorial Library, School for
Officers' Training, Suffern, New York), 22.
57. Salvation Army Rescue Home,
Cleveland, Ohio, Annual Report, 1893, 3-10.
58. Salvation Army Rescue Home,
Cleveland, Ohio. Links of Love, Annual Report,
Salvation Army Rescue Work in
Cleveland, 1904, 8.
59. Frederick Booth-Tucker, The
Salvation Army in America, Selected Reports,
1899-1903 (New York, 1972), n.p.
60. Robert Sandall, The History of
the Salvation Army, Vol. III, 1883-1953 (London,
Edinburgh, Paris, Melbourne, Toronto and
New York, 1947-1973), 211-12.
132 OHIO HISTORY
"Christian" physician.61
In that same year a national directory of
Army institutions listed the facility as
the "Cleveland Rescue and
Maternity Home,"62 and
Army publications boasted of the Home's
medical success:
The Maternity Home, of which
unfortunately there are only two in the East,
are most successful.... The one in
Cleveland has a record that is the pride
of the philanthropist doctor who attends. During the
whole nine years of its
being, they have never lost one case
.... Oh, there should be more such
homes.63
Accompanying the professional medical
treatment, however, was
an analysis of illegitimate pregnancy
which combined a secular inter-
pretation with the Army's traditional
religious perspective. The ma-
tron of a Home, asked how the girls
happened to be there, ex-
plained, "Many are betrayed when
they are young and innocent and
then deserted when in trouble."
Many do not have "proper supervi-
sion at home . . . Some fall through
drink." But whatever the case,
they were not "so hard but that the
love of Christ could not save
them."64
Contemporary photographs of the Home's
late Victorian architec-
ture look grim and forbidding, but Army
literature described the
house as "large, airy, and
pleasant, with a lovely, big garden and
wide, roomy porches where the babies can
play and sleep outdoors
all day" and specially designed
furniture in the nursery.65 This em-
phasis on childcare reflected the Home's
membership in the Confer-
ence on Illegitimacy. Like the other
maternity homes, the Rescue
conformed to some of the Conference's
guidelines: for example, im-
plementation of the six-month policy and
the use of a social case
worker. In some ways, however, the
Rescue deviated, again within
the tradition of a broader scope for its
work. Its fees were smaller
than the other homes; it sometimes took
women wih a venereal dis-
ease, and routinely took black women,
the only Cleveland home to
do so.66
61. Salvation Army Rescue Home,
Cleveland, Ohio, Diamonds in the Rough, Annual
Report, Salvation Army Rescue Work in
Cleveland, 1905, 4-5.
62. Review of the Women's and
Children's Rescue Work During 1906 (New York, no
date), n.p.
63. Where the Shadows Lengthen: A
Sketch of the Salvation Army's Work in the Unit-
ed States of America (New York, 1907), 19.
64. Ibid., 20.
65. Neighbors: A Story briefly told
of the labor of love and interesting events in the
lives of The Salvation Army Women
Social Officers (New York, 1911),
25-26.
66. FCP, Conference on Illegitimacy,
December 1, 1913, Container 30, Folder 738;
March 30, 1921; January 9, 1922,
Container 30, Folder 739.
"Go and Sin No More" 133
The trend toward a dual rescue home and
maternity hospital con-
tinued on a national scale; by 1920 the
Army managed similar institu-
tions in New York, Detroit, Boston, and
Greenville, South Carolina.
The rescue work continued, particularly
during the social disloca-
tions caused by World War I, for women
who were not pregnant, but
cast adrift in the cities as prostitutes
or derelicts.67 Throughout the
1920s, however, the term "Rescue
Home" was replaced generally by
"Home and Hospital for Unmarried
Mothers," and these became
known as "Booth Memorials" as
in Cleveland, and specialized in the
medical care of unmarried mothers.68
The reformatory goal was not lost,
however, as the hospitals
stressed religion, discipline, and
domestic skills, and an obligatory
confinement period.69 Army
work with unwed mothers continued to
be carried on with "deep religious
earnestness."70 The numbers of
these women dwindled at Booth during the
1930s, as at the other
maternity facilities, and in 1933 Booth
began to take private, married
patients, who would eventually
constitute most of its clientele.
The Mary B. Talbert Home
Booth Memorial's origins lie in the
demographic upheaval caused
by the immigration into the city of
whites from Europe and the
American countryside. The beginnings of
the Army's second Cleve-
land home for unwed mothers, the Mary B.
Talbert Home, lie in the
"great migration" of Southern
blacks into Cleveland in the late 1910s
and the early 1920s. Growing numbers of
the city's unwed mothers
were black, but only the Rescue Home
accepted them, and then
only four or five.71 By 1924 the
once-Jewish neighborhood on Kins-
man Street, site of the Rescue Home, was
becoming black, and the
Army increased the numbers of black
women it took.72 The Confer-
ence on Illegitimacy then suggested that
the Army run a separate fa-
cility for black women, as the Army did
in Cincinnati. The Confer-
ence's rationale revealed its thinking
on both blacks and on unwed
67. War Service Herald and Social
News, May, 1920, 4-5.
68. Handbook of Information, Homes
and Hospitals for Unmarried Mothers (New
York, no date), 13-14.
69. McKinley, Marching, 139.
70. Ethel Verry, "Meeting the
Challenge of Today's Needs in Working with Unmar-
ried Mothers," Paper given at the
War Regional Meeting of the National Conference of
Social Workers, 1943, n.p.
71. FCP, Conference on Illegitimacy,
January 9, 1922, Container 30, Folder 739.
72. Ibid., June 21, 1924.
134 OHIO HISTORY |
|
mothers. Far fewer black than white women delivered children in maternity homes even though the black women, the Conference felt, were more in need of the special "training" that such homes provid- ed. The Conference also believed it inadvisable for black and white women to be housed in the same facility.73 Therefore, with the urging of the Welfare Federation and financial support from the Cleveland Council of Colored Women, the Army opened the Mary B. Talbert Home. When the Army moved its facility for white women to East Cleve- land, the Mary B. Talbert moved to the old Kinsman location. The regimen for black women included religious training as it did for white women at Booth, but the vocational training assumed, proba- bly quite correctly, that the black women would find jobs only as do- mestics; "plain sewing, cooking, and general housework" were the only subjects taught.74 The Mary B. Talbert Home also served Cleveland's black medical community, providing medical students with practice in obstetrics and doctors with a place to deliver their private patients since most of
73. Ibid. 74. Ibid., December 14, 1925. |
"Go and Sin No More" 135
Cleveland's hospitals did not allow
blacks to practice there.75 Black
unwed mothers continued to receive
special counseling and religious
guidance at the Mary B. Talbert until
1961 when it was merged with
Booth.
The Maternity Home
MacDonald House of University Hospitals
is the only one of the
maternity facilities to have begun
primarily as a medical institution for
the training of obstetric
practitioners-nurses and doctors. However,
because of the necessity of treating
poor and unwed mothers, the
Hospital acted also as a benevolent and
social service institution in
some ways like the maternity homes.
Seventeenth and eighteenth century
hospitals were designed pri-
marily for the indigent who had no homes
where they could be
cared for. Hospitals, therefore, were
associated with poverty and the
high mortality rates which accompanied
the medical treatment of
the indigent in inadequate facilities by
inadequate practitioners. Like
other institutions for the poor,
hospitals became the focus of private
benevolence, funded by male
philanthropists and managed by
boards of local women who saw to the
daily needs of the hospital
and its patients.
Maternity or lying-in hospitals followed
this pattern. Through the
nineteenth century, they were used
almost exclusively by poor and
often unmarried mothers, and the
hospitals sought to provide not
only for the physical health of these
patients but for their "moral re-
habilitation," attempting to
"treat the whole woman; body, behav-
ior, and belief."76
Although these benevolent impulses
lingered through the 1930s,
hospitals also provided training
facilities for the medical profession.
Until the twentieth century most doctors
received their training on
the job-that is, on the patients-rather
than in the medical school
classroom. Obviously, it was more
convenient to practice on patients
gathered together in one place such as a
hospital than to search out
individuals. Further, since patients
were generally poor, a profession-
al error made less difference.
By the nineteenth century, it was
particularly difficult for a male
doctor to acquire training in
obstetrics. The field had been monopo-
75. Letter from Commissioner Edward
Carey to Miss Eleanor Custer, May 2, 1983.
76. Richard W. Wertz and Dorothy C.
Wertz, Lying-In: A History of Childbirth in
America (New York, 1977), 186-89.
136 OHIO HISTORY
lized by midwives since the colonial
period. Although male mid-
wives and general practitioners began to
deliver babies by the sec-
ond half of the eighteenth century,
developing notions about female
modesty made gynecological examinations
and child deliveries med-
ically and culturally difficult for men
to perform. As a result, many
doctors began their practices without
ever having seen a delivery, let
alone having performed one.77 As
the medical profession became in-
creasingly self-conscious about its
professional standards in the first
half of the nineteenth century, this
ignorance became less accep-
table. Lying-in or maternity hospitals
were a good way to provide
fledgling obstetricians with some actual
practice.
MacDonald House owed its establishment
to this need to provide
training for Cleveland's growing medical
profession, as well as to the
secondary benevolent desire to reform
unmarried mothers. In 1891 a
group of philanthropic Clevelanders
founded the Maternity Home.
Its object was to "furnish a home
for worthy women during confine-
ment and the lying-in period and to
educate nurses in the specialty of
obstetrics . . . and to furnish
maternity cases for the C.H.H. [Cleve-
land Homeopathic Hospital]
College."78 The affiliation with the
homeopathic rather than the
"regular" or orthodox medical estab-
lishment is not surprising since many
prominent and wealthy Cleve-
landers, including John D. Rockefeller,
were followers of homeopa-
thy. Homeopathy, which relied on minute
doses of drugs which
induced in the patient reactions like
the symptoms of his disease,
was a well-respected therapy until the
American Medical Association
drove homeopaths almost out of the
profession in the early twentieth
century.79
Rules for the Maternity Home appear
stringent by today's
standards. A patient, apparently
regardless of her health, could be
dismissed by the head matron for
disobedience.80 But rules for all
hospital patients were strict, perhaps
because most patients were un-
familiar with hospitals and perhaps
because patients were most often
poor and, therefore, considered
naturally disorderly. The house
rules for the wards of Cleveland's
Lakeside Hospital in 1898, for ex-
ample, forbade patients from using
"profane or indecent language"
77. Frederick W. Waite, Western
Reserve University Centennial History of the School
of Medicine (Cleveland, 1946), 77.
78. By-Laws of Maternity Home of
Cleveland, 1891, 1, in Archives of University
Hospitals, Cleveland, Ohio.
79. James G. Burrow, Organized
Medicine in the Progressive Era: The Move Toward
Monopoly (Baltimore and London, 1977), 71-82.
80. By-Laws of Maternity Home, 15-16.
"Go and Sin No More" 137
and making "immoral or infidel
statements," playing cards, smoking
tobacco, or drinking alcoholic
beverages.81 Yet despite the rigidity
of hospital rules in general and
references to "worthy women" aside,
there are indications that the first
patients at the Maternity Home
were indeed unwed mothers. The Matron,
for example, was required
to "exert a religious influence
over the inmates and hold some reli-
gious service each day,"82 suggesting
the conventional belief that re-
ligious conversion would reclaim a
woman's lost virtue. In addition,
funds for the Home were raised in 1893
by a series of public perform-
ances of "marriage dramas,"
which included an ancient Greek mar-
riage, a "Jewish ritual," and
the wedding of Pocahantas and John
Rolfe.83 The moral seems
obvious. And in fact, the Home claimed to
have "received and cared for more
than two hundred unfortunate
women and girls, mostly delivered of
illegitimate children" by
1896.84
Until the turn of the century, the
institution retained its ties to the
Cleveland Homeopathic Medical College.
The College's annual an-
nouncement for 1897-98 boasted that
"The Maternity Home fur-
nishes a class of clinical cases of the
greatest utility to those about to
enter the general practice of medicine.
Each member of the senior
class will have an opportunity to
witness a variety of demonstrations;
will be taught the manipulation of
instruments and all kinds of obstet-
rical appliances and will be required
personally to conduct at least
one case of labor under the supervision
of a clinician."85
Shortly after this, however, the
Maternity Home changed its affili-
ation and, to some extent, its focus as
well. It is listed in the 1901 city
directory as "The Maternity
Hospital" rather than "Home,"86 em-
phasizing the medical over the
benevolent orientation. By 1905 "reg-
ular" physicians, as well as
homeopaths, appeared on its Board.87
Of particular significance was the
presence on the Board of Dr. Ar-
thur Bill, who in 1907 began his own
out-patient obstetrical service.
On his staff were students from the
Western Reserve University
81. Thirty-Second Annual Report of
the Lakeside Hospital, Cleveland, Ohio, 1898,
85-86.
82. By-Laws of Maternity Home, 15.
83. Promotional materials in Vertical
file, Maternity Home, Cleveland, Ohio, West-
ern Reserve Historical Society.
84. Cleveland, Ohio, Centennial
Commission, The History of the Charities of Cleve-
land, 1796-1896 (Cleveland, 1896), 52.
85. The Cleveland Homeopathic Medical
College, Annual Announcement, 1897-98,
25.
86. Cleveland Directory for 1901 (Cleveland,
1901), 1683.
87. The Maternity Hospital, Annual
Report, 1905-1906, n.p.
138 OHIO HISTORY
School of Medicine. In 1913 the Hospital
became the headquarters
for this service. The Hospital enlarged
its facilities to care for its
growing clientele, and in 1914 the staff
included ten visiting doctors,
one resident physician, and 20 student
nurses.88
At the same time, there was growing
dissatisfaction at the Medical
School with training provided almost
exclusively by out-patient de-
liveries,89 and therefore,
the Hospital became formally affiliated
with the Western Reserve University
Medical School in 1917,90 es-
tablishing itself solidly as a
"regular" training institution and, in-
creasingly, as a place for respectable
married women to have babies.
Plans to move the Maternity Hospital
(and Babies and Children's
Dispensary, a separate institution) to
the site of University Hospitals
was delayed by World War I, but effected
in 1925.91 In 1936 the
Hospital was re-christened MacDonald
House after Calvina Mac-
Donald, its head nurse from 1913 to
1933, who was particularly influ-
ential in shaping its training programs
for obstetrical nurses.
The Hospital's medical focus was clearly
stated: its object was "to
provide facilities for the hospital care
and home care of maternity
cases and for the advancement of
obstetrical education and to main-
tain dispensaries for prenatal and
medical care for mothers."92 Yet
the Hospital could not disengage itself
entirely from its initial reform-
ist goals. Although it proudly noted its
paying patients, its annual re-
port of 1908 admitted that its clientele
also included "more than one
deserted wife with a babe in her
arms," for whom the hospital's re-
lief committee found a home, board, and
a job.93 This committee,
staffed by volunteers, soon became the
Social Service Department
with a medical case worker.
The Hospital also was a member of the
Federation for Charity and
Philanthropy and had a seat on the
Conference on Illegitimacy, with
which it shared some, but not all, goals
and techniques for the treat-
ment of unmarried mothers. For example,
the Hospital had a policy
of not taking "second
offenders" although, like other institutions, in
actual practice it sometimes did.94
On the other hand, the Hospital
88. "Facts about 18 Cleveland
Hospitals Represented in the Hospital Council,"
(Cleveland, 1914), n.p.
89. Forty-Seventh Annual Report of
the Trustees of the Lakeside Hospital (Cleveland,
1913), 58.
90. Waite, Western Reserve, 253.
91. Ibid., 254.
92. Maternity Hospital and Dispensaries
of Maternity Hospital and Western Reserve
University, Annual Report, 1924,
29.
93. Maternity Hospital, Cleveland, Ohio,
Annual Report, 1909, 17.
94. FCP, Council on Illegitimacy, March
12, 1923, Container 30, Folder 739.
"Go and Sin No More" 139
did not provide "long-term care and
training of unmarried mothers"
as did the other facilities. As a
Hospital representative explained in
1924, "the suggestion of caring for
unmarried mothers at the hospital
comes from the desire to teach nurses
and doctors." Furthermore,
the Hospital was so much more expensive
than the other maternity
facilities ($4.10 a day for mother and
infant as opposed to $.85 in the
homes) that the Hospital could not
afford to keep its patients long
enough to "train" them, nor
could the patients have afforded to stay
if they had wanted to.95 The
Hospital did, however, refer its unwed
mothers to other welfare agencies such
as the Humane Society.96
The Hospital also worked closely with
the maternity homes, some-
times supervising there the deliveries
of women given prenatal care at
the Hospital out-patient clinics.97
Annual reports through the 1920s
record the increasing number of unwed
mothers treated at the Hos-
pital or its clinics; more and more of
these were black.98
The numbers of all women treated had
swelled from 49 in 1893, to
368 after the Hospital's affiliation
with Dr. Bill, to 1375 in 1923,99 re-
vealing the growing acceptability of
hospital care to middle-class
women. By 1936, however, the number of
unmarried mothers at
MacDonald House was half what it had
been in 1929.100 The ex-
pense of its specialized facilities had
put it beyond the reach of those
women whom it had been founded to serve.
The Florence Crittenton Home
When the Florence Crittenton Home was
founded in Cleveland in
1912, it was part of a chain of seventy
Crittenton Homes across the
country and abroad.101 The chain was
begun in 1883 by Charles
Crittenton, the "millionaire
evangelist," a millionaire by virtue of his
flourishing pharmaceutical business and
an evangelist by avocation.
In his work with a New York City
mission, Crittenton visited dives
95. Ibid., June 21, 1924.
96. Ibid., March 31, 1921.
97. First Annual Report of the
University Hospitals of Clevelandfor 1927 (Cleveland,
1928), 74.
98. Annual Report of the University
Hospitals of Cleveland for 1928 (Cleveland,
1929), 234.
99. Maternity Hospitals and Dispensaries
of Maternity Hospital and Western Reserve
University, Annual Report, 1923,
3.
100. FCP, Children's Council, Committee
on Unmarried Mothers, August 14, 1936,
Container 33, Folder 829.
101. Katherine G. Aiken, "The
National Florence Crittenton Mission, 1883-1925: A
Case Study in Progressive Reform"
(Ph.D. dissertation, Washington State University,
1980), 85.
140 OHIO HISTORY
and brothels and, according to his own
account, realized one night
when he had advised an unfortunate woman
to "Go and sin no
more" that she had nowhere to go;102 hence, the founding of the
first Florence Night Mission, named
after Crittenton's dead daugh-
ter. The Mission offered food, shelter,
and gospel services to home-
less women and prostitutes, sought out
by a rescue band of Christian
workers inspired by Crittenton's message
of salvation.103 Within fif-
teen years, the Mission had become the
National Florence Crittenton
Mission, chartered by the federal
government. By 1933 there were 65
Crittenton Homes with an annual budget
of $700,000 to $800,000.104
Over these years also there were perceptible
shifts in focus and em-
phasis, from the reformation of the
prostitute through religious con-
version to homes for unwed mothers, from
"the more fervidly emo-
tional spirit of the earlier
evangelistic years to a thorough and careful
study of every phase of the problem of
helping girls."105 Yet despite
these changes, the Florence Crittenton
Home, in Cleveland anyway,
retained through the 1930s much of the
flavor of the original evangel-
ical rescue work.
Cleveland's Home was founded relatively
late, perhaps because
the city already had three
well-established homes as well as hospi-
tals which treated unwed mothers. Even
so, neighbors twice
blocked the Home's attempt to buy
property.106 Once underway,
the Home bore clearly the impress of the
then-president of the Na-
tional Florence Crittenton Mission, Dr.
Kate Waller Barrett, who suc-
ceeded Crittenton after his death and
whose meeting in 1910 with a
Cleveland social worker inspired the
Home's establishment.107
Barrett was not only an administrator
but a philosopher on the
treatment of unwed motherhood. In Some
Practical Suggestions on
the Conduct of a Rescue Home, Barrett described the ideal home as
a "big, old-fashioned, roomy house
in a quiet part of the city, with
large, sunny, bright rooms for sitting
rooms and workrooms, with
books and magazines on hygiene, child
study and self-culture" and
an especially pretty room for the
nursery, "for no home is complete
without a baby."108 Contemporary
photographs of the first home on
102. Otto Wilson, Fifty Years' Work
with Girls, 1883-1933 (Alexandria, Virginia,
1933), 30.
103. Aiken, "National Florence
Crittenton," 15-24.
104. Wilson, Fifty Years, 4-5.
105. Ibid., 7-8.
106. Ibid., 254.
107. Ibid., 253.
108. Kate Waller Barrett, M.D., Some
Practical Suggestions on the Conduct of a Res-
cue Home (New York, 1974), 7-9.
"Go and Sin No More" 141 |
|
Eddy Road suggest such a physical setting.109 Crittenton Homes were to be "true homes-God's homes" but also places of discipline and order. All girls helped with the domestic chores: "We believe that every lady should know how to cook, wash, and iron, if she does not know anything else, and as we expect our girls to be ladies in the highest and truest sense, they must all learn to do these things, and do them well."110 As at the Retreat, which this Home most closely resembled, "spiritual regeneration and industrial inde- pendence" were to be "the key-note of all our endeavors toward the upbuilding of character."111 Barrett regarded pregnancy out of wedlock as a "sin" and spoke of reformation through "the Holy Ghost."112 She became best known, however, among social welfare workers who dealt with un- wed mothers for her belief in motherhood itself as a means of spiri- tual regeneration. She was a vocal advocate of the six-month or long- er confinement during which the mother nursed her child: "There is a God-implanted instinct of motherhood that needs only to be
109. Scrapbooks in Florence Crittenton Home Papers, MS. 3910, Western Reserve Historical Society, Container 2, Folders 10 and 11 (hereinafter referred to as FCH Pa- pers). 110. Barrett, Practical Suggestions, 15, 26. 111. Ibid., 110. 112. Ibid., 100. |
142 OHIO HISTORY
aroused to be one of the strongest
incentives to right living,"113 Bar-
rett maintained. She shared this belief
in the special virtue of moth-
erhood with other women reformers of the
period, from settlement
house workers to suffragists.
The Cleveland Home almost immediately
became a member of the
Federation for Charity and Philanthropy
and the Conference on Ille-
gitimacy. The Federation was called upon
several times in the
Home's early years to bail it out
financially although it also received
funds from the National Florence
Crittenton Mission.114 In return, of
course, the Federation imposed controls
upon the Home, insisting
upon intelligence testing and screening
for venereal disease of its cli-
entele and the use of a social worker.
Yet despite the inevitable
standardization, the Cleveland Home
came close to capturing the letter, and
perhaps the spirit, of Barrett's
injunctions, possibly because the Home
was small, sheltering from
ten to fifteen girls most of the time.
The girls received religious in-
struction and had Bibles in their rooms;
prayers were part of the dai-
ly routines, just as they were of the
Board of Managers' meetings.115
The Home received funds, as well as
gifts in kind, from local Critten-
ton "Circles," usually
affiliated with a Protestant church. Inmates at-
tended classes in arithmetic, English
and domestic science in the
Home.116 To create a home-like
atmosphere, its Board of Managers,
volunteers from the neighboring
communities, planned birthday par-
ties and holiday festivities for the
girls, which they attended them-
selves. Managers also taught some of the
classes and acted as "big
sisters" for the inmates after they
left the Home.117
Numbers of babies born and sheltered
were always carefully and
proudly recorded every year, but the
Home in its first decade shel-
tered more than unwed mothers. In 1916,
for example, some girls
had been referred to the Home from the
Human Society, some from
Juvenile and Municipal Courts, and some
from Associated Charities;
these were women whose problems were
probably delinquency or
poverty rather than illegitimate
pregnancy. And the thrust, in the
spirit of Charles Crittenton, was broad
and evangelical. "Rescue
work is peculiar-but not popular,"
explained the Home's annual re-
113. Ibid., 47.
114. FCH Papers, Board of Trustees
minutes, December 15, 1913, Container 1, Fold-
er 2.
115. Ibid., Board of Managers
minutes, May 5, 1914, Container 1, Folder 11.
116. Ibid., July, 1918, Container
1, Folder 12.
117. Ibid., April 1, 1913;
September 3, 1913; September 14, 1915, Container 1, Folder
11.
"Go and Sin No More" 143
port. "No girl is turned from our
door. We care for any woman in need
of help, regardless of race or
creed." (In actual fact, the Home did
not take black women.) "While
social service work and religious
work differ, yet religion is at the
heart of life as well as the basis of so-
cial advancement, and without it our
attempt at this work would
prove a failure. The more we trust in a
Higher Power for supreme
help, and lean entirely upon Him for
strength and guidance, the more
we will be able to accomplish. If we
clothe and shelter and feed our
girls and do not give them Bread of
Life, our work will be in
vain."118
The religious flavor is unmistakable,
but the Crittenton Homes did
not rely entirely upon God. Each had a
legal committee which
sought to establish and maintain the
legal rights of the mother and
child, particularly its right to
financial support from the father.119
Crittenton staff sometimes tried to
track down the putative father
to bring him to justice or induce him to
marry the mother of his
child. 120
Not until the 1920s did the Home become
primarily a maternity fa-
cility, although its focus was still not
on medical care: "Ours is not a
commercialized maternity hospital, but a
place where an unmarried
girl is welcome, who, unfortunately, is
pregnant, and has nowhere
else to go for the care and privacy she
otherwise could not afford." A
girl was urged to stay in the Home for
prenatal care and medical at-
tention during childbirth, but more
important, "with us she is sur-
rounded by influences which will help to
strengthen her character,
the weakness of which resulted in her
needing our help." Hence, the
Home retained the six-month policy
although this began to weaken
during this decade.121 The frontispiece of the 1929 brochure bore
the motto which harked back to
Crittenton's original impulse: "Go
and sin no more.' "122
The reformatory goal of the Home was
reflected in its restrictive
policies, which prevented girls from
leaving the premises unless ac-
companied by Board members, who did take
the girls on summer
outings and held teas and parties for
them.123 Best known was the
annual June Day, a lawn party and bazaar
attended by local friends
of the home and sometimes by former
inmates. Board members seem
118. Florence Crittenton Home, Brochure,
1916-1917, 11-14.
119. Ibid., 14.
120. FCP Conference on Illegitimacy,
January 27, 1916, Container 30, Folder 738.
121. Florence Crittenton Home, Brochure,
1926, n.p.
122. Ibid., 1929, n.p.
123. Wilson, Fifty Years, 256.
144 OHIO HISTORY |
|
to have shouldered much of the maintenance and administrative re- sponsibilities since the only paid resident staff was the matron; a pe- diatrician and obstetricians were on call. The Home's small size and the intimate contact with interested volunteers may explain the fond letters and birth and wedding announcements sent by former in- mates which were kept in the Home scrapbooks.124 The Home barely held its own through the Depression years, its numbers remaining about constant.125 Its link with the other Flor- ence Crittenton Homes from which it drew clientele and where it could place local girls gave it some advantage over the other materni- ty homes. The Cleveland Home remained a maternity facility until 1970. In 1973, as a member of the Child Welfare League of America, Florence Crittenton Services opened two homes for delinquent but non-pregnant girls. The serious decline in numbers of unwed mothers, noted at all the facilities by the mid-1930s, had several explanations, more obvious to us today perhaps than to the facilities themselves at the time. First, the Depression cut private funding to the institutions; county relief funds did not pay for confinements in maternity homes ei- ther.126 The homes traditionally had not charged patients who
124. FCH Papers, Container 2, Folders 10 and 11. 125. FCP, Children's Council, Committee on Unmarried Mothers, November 30, 1936, Container 30, Folder 829. 126. Ibid., May 4, 1936. |
"Go and Sin No More" 145
could not pay, but a woman might have
preferred to have a baby
inexpensively at the City Hospital than
to become a charity patient at
a maternity home. Unmarried mothers also
seemed less ashamed to
have their babies in their family
homes,127 thus reversing the trend
toward hospital deliveries. Last, the
birthrate for both legitimate
and illegitimate children dropped.
With the Retreat and the Florence
Crittenton Home in danger of
folding, therefore, Cleveland maternity
homes used the Conference
on Illegitimacy meetings to do some
needed soul-searching and re-
evaluation. At several meetings,
Conference representatives suggested
that the homes did not offer enough
options to their clientele. In
1934, for example, the Conference
recommended more vocational ed-
ucation, more recreation facilities, and
more emphasis on assimilating
the unmarried mother into the
community.128 The six-month con-
finement policy was also being modified
in some of the homes, per-
haps out of economic necessity. 129 A committee on
illegitimacy of the
Children's Council of the Welfare
Federation, which had
overlapping membership with the
Conference on Illegitimacy and
would soon subsume it, also had
criticisms. While conceding that
the homes provided a girl with "a
breathing space to allow her time
to solve her problems" and a way to
shield herself and her family
from social disgrace, this committee
urged "fewer rules" and "great-
er flexibility."130
Yet as the histories of the individual
homes have suggested and as
the Conference on Illegitimacy minutes
substantiate, the homes clung
to their traditional views and postures.
Unwed mothers were still iso-
lated, sheltered from the outside world.
Homes still insisted on the
six-month stay whenever possible;
inmates delivered their babies at
the homes rather than in a hospital
unless the delivery was particu-
larly difficult. Inmates were not
permitted to visit their families or re-
ceive visits from the fathers of their
children unless marriage was in
the offing. The women were not
encouraged to write or receive let-
ters, and all in-coming and out-going
mail was censored "to correct
spelling." When "many seemed
to feel the restraint of not going out
for amusement," they were told that
"it is not the institution which
is limiting their freedom but the
situation in which they found them-
selves." 131 Homes still trained
inmates in domestic skills despite evi-
127. Ibid., February 5, 1936.
128. Ibid., Conference on
Illegitimacy, May 13, 1934, Microfilm Reel 33.
129. Ibid., Committee on
Unmarried Mothers, October 21, 1934, Container 33, Fold-
er 829.
130. Ibid., May 2, 1935.
131. Ibid., Conference on
Illegitimacy, January 23, 1932, Microfilm Reel 33.
146 OHIO HISTORY
dence that housework, far from being a
preventive to unwed mother-
hood, was the job at which most of the
women were working when
they became pregnant.132
With the exception of St. Ann's, the
homes had lost whatever sec-
tarian identities they originally had,
and most claimed not to try to
"foster a religious
affiliation." Girls could attend a church of their
choice, but with a chaperone from the
home. Priests and ministers
were encouraged to visit the homes to
provide spiritual direction.133
Guidance was also provided by the
visiting social worker. A Con-
ference report in 1934 noted that the
social worker's job was "not to
bring moral judgement . . . but to
attempt to get [the unwed parents]
to face their own reality." The
report went on, however, to identify
the unmarried mother as "sexually
delinquent," 134 a term which
does not suggest moral neutrality. It is
no wonder that inmates often
regarded the social workers as
"'miserable people, who pry into
one's affairs.' "135
In 1935 The Social Year Book, a
social work encyclopedia, made
this observation: "Among the
maternity homes the earlier type of
mission home with its extreme religious
influence is being replaced
by more modern institutions, operated on
case work principles."136
Possibly Cleveland's homes did not
change as dramatically as did
homes elsewhere. More likely, however,
the changes were simply not
as clearcut or significant as they
appeared in 1935. The maternity
homes may have become technically
secular with personnel trained
at schools of social work or medicine,
but this transformation was not
accompanied by the loss of the original
moral directives. The evan-
gelical impulse may have been partially
disguised in the rhetoric of
social science; the missionary may have
been dressed as a social
worker or a Welfare Federation official.
Yet these homes, at least
through the 1930s, remained dedicated to
their nineteenth century
mission of saving the souls and bodies
of those who had "lost the
glory of their womanhood."
132. Ibid., Committee on
Unmarried Mothers, November 30, 1936, Container 33,
Folder 829.
133. Ibid., Conference on
Illegitimacy, January 23, 1932, Microfilm Reel 33.
134. Ibid., May 14, 1934.
135. Ibid., January 23, 1932.
136. Fred S. Hall, ed., Social Work
Year Book (New York, 1935), 69.
MARIAN J. MORTON
"Go and Sin No More": Maternity
Homes in Cleveland, 1869-1936
In 1869 the Woman's Christian
Association of Cleveland founded
the Retreat, the first of the city's
maternity homes and refuges for
women who had "lost the glory of
their womanhood."1 Its founders
sought to emulate Christ's injunction to
Mary Magdalen: "Woman,
sin no more; thy faith hath saved
thee."2 As its name suggests, the
Retreat was a shelter, a refuge, in
which the fallen woman, both vic-
tim and sinner, could be saved and
reclaimed through evangelical re-
ligion, the ministrations of pious
women, and the learning of domestic
skills and virtues. In 1936 the Retreat
closed, victim of the hard times
of the Depression, the rising costs of
medical care, and lessened de-
mand for the kind of services it
provided.
In the intervening years, five more
facilities for unwed mothers,
similar to the Retreat in their initial
goals and strategies, opened in
Cleveland: St. Ann's Maternity Home and
Infant Asylum in 1873; the
Salvation Army Rescue Home in 1892; the
Maternity Home in 1892;
the Florence Crittenton Home in 1912,
and another Salvation Army
facility, the Mary B. Talbert Home, in
1925. All these institutions un-
derwent significant changes in the years
1869 to 1936. All joined the
Cleveland Federation for Charity and
Philanthropy, becoming part
of a network of secular social welfare
agencies and conforming to the
standards imposed by the Federation and
by Ohio laws regulating
maternity homes and hospitals. Fees and
admission policies were
standardized; their staffs became more
professional. All officially
adopted the current explanations for
unwed motherhood which at-
Marian J. Morton is Professor of History
at John Carroll University. This article was
written, in part, with aid from a
National Endowment for the Humanities summer
stipend.
1. Woman's Christian Association, Annual
Report 1870, 15, MS 3516, Western Re-
serve Historical Society. Hereinafter
this collection will be referred to as YWCA Cleve-
land, since the collection is titled
after the group's later name.
2. Mary Ingham, Women of Cleveland
and Their Work: Philanthropic, Educational,
Literary, Medical and Artistic (Cleveland, 1893), 151.