Research Catalog

Title

Abby Hopper Gibbons : prison reformer and social activist / Margaret Hope Bacon.

Author

Bacon, Margaret Hope.

Publication

Albany : State University of New York Press, c2000.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

xvii, 217 p. : ill; 24 cm.

Summary

"This first contemporary biography of nineteenth-century American social activist and prison reformer Abigail Hopper Gibbons (1801-1893) illuminates women's changing role in the various reform movements of the period. Beginning as an abolitionist/feminist, Gibbons helped to found the Women's Prison Association of New York City in 1845. This group established the Isaac T. Hopper Home for discharged women prisoners, the first such institution in the world. Gibbons later became an advocate and lobbyist for improvements in the care of women in the city prisons, for the employment of police matrons, and for the establishment of separate correctional facilities for women prisoners." "Though born pacifist Quaker, Gibbons became a Civil War nurse who protected escaping slaves. During the 1863 Draft Riots, her house in New York City was sacked. Following the war, she was involved in establishing several New York charities. In the 1870s she became a leader and lobbyist for the Moral Reform Movement, both locally and nationally. Her story is intrinsically interesting, and illustrates the political action employed by women of her period."--Jacket.

Series Statement

SUNY series in women, crime, and criminology

Uniform Title

SUNY series in women, crime, and criminology.

Subject

• Gibbons, Abby (Hopper) 1801-1893
• Prison reformers > United States > Biography
• Women social reformers > United States > Biography
• Quaker women > United States > Biography

Genre/Form

Biographies

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p.201-206) and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

Her father's daughter -- The abolitionist/feminists -- The woman question -- Our imprisoned sisters -- "Losses and crosses" -- "The call of humanity" -- "Take the news to mother" -- The draft riots -- "When Johnny comes marching home again" -- An advocate for women -- "A reformatory, pure and simple."

ISBN

• 079144497X (hc. : alk. paper)
• 0791444988 (pb. : alk. paper)

LCCN

^^^99039701^

OCLC

• 41944694
• SCSB-11110494

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library