Representative women of New England/Florence G. Spooner
FLORENCE GARRETTSON SPOONER, President of the Massachusetts Prison Reform League, has been a resident of Boston the past thirty-two years, her home being in a quiet corner where West End and Back Bay meet, at the lower end of Pinckney Street. Florence Garretson Spooner was born in Baltimore. On her mother's side she is descended from one of the most noted families of colonial history in Maryland. Her ancestors were of the Dorsey, Worthington, Howard, and Hammond connection, which united the best blood of the State. One of her great-grandfathers was William Ball, closely related to the mother of Washington. The Garrettsons, on her father's side, were among the earliest settlers of Maryland and New York. In the year 1752 the Rev. Freeborn Garretson gave up his grants of land, and freed his slaves through religious convictions. He became a missionary of the Methodist Episcopal Church, travelling from the Carolinas to Nova Scotia on horseback. His wife, Katherine Livingston, was a daughter of Judge Livingston and sister to Robert R. Livingston, the first Chancellor of New York.
Mrs. Spooner in girlhood and early womanhood was devoted to music, using her rare voice in many choirs as a gift of love, and belonging to the most exclusive musical clubs. Her natural talent for organization made her a centre of attraction, where she stood at the helm of many church and society functions. With further knowledge and experience her life broadened and character developed. She served on philanthropic committees, thus turning into practical channels her sympathetic and over-abundant compassion for the sorrows and needs of unfortunates. An earnest and enthusiastic worker in her chosen field of reform, efficient in many ways, she has been described as "a religious, consuming soul, always in communication with the authorities of Church and State, going straight on, radiating in a hundred directions, bringing forces to bear on the whole circumference of unusual cruelties. The doors have fallen, and light has illuminated dark places: and she will succeed in what she undertakes because she has just that faith that will remove mountains, the mountains of prejudice and persistence." Time and the Hour says: "Florence Spooner's name has become as famous as Elizabeth Fry and Dorothea Dix, and her charity has taken the form of divine fire."
Mrs. Spooner has studied untiringly the prison system in America. Her humane and practical requests have seldom been denied. She has succeeded in getting notable people together at important houses and in the chapels of leading churches. Bishops, governors, and other officials have so recognized her great earnestness, sincerity, and simplicity that they have been moved to say the right word at the right time: and for this reason she insists that the credit for the successful agitation and awakening of the public conscience to the evils existing in the prisons belongs to the wise men of a marvellous century.
In 1894 Governor Greenhalge gave his support to her cause by presiding at a meeting where three subjects were especially advocated—abolition of dungeons (dark cells), the indeterminate sentence, and the supplanting of houses of correction by reformatories. Prison commissioners and representatives of the Prison Association and other organizations participated in the discussion. This meeting, the first held by the Prison Reform League, was arranged by Mrs. Spooner, Mrs. James T. Fields, and Miss Mason. Among other conferences held by Mrs. Spooner and her co-workers was one at Trinity Church Chapel, presided over by Mayor Quincy.
The successful work accomplished by Mrs. Spooner toward the abolishment of dark cells in the city prisons and the good done by her was specially commended by Dr. Alfred B. Heath, Commissioner, Institutions Department of the City of Boston, in 1896. Penal Commissioner Ernest C. Marshall has also officially endorsed her beneficent work. The League has agitated the subject of the present system of fines for drunkenness, which they consider as indefensible. The Police Commission responded promptly to their request for co-operation, and Chairman Martin invited Mrs. Spooner, Mr. Robert Treat Paine, Commissioner Marshall, and a Sister of St. Margaret's to make a midnight tour of inspection of station-house cells as a study of the subject.
In 1896–97, under the guidance of leading men, wise and conservative, she engaged in the movement to abolish capital punishment, resulting in the substitution of the electric chair for the scaffold. She organized the Anti-Death Penalty League in 1897, and, after the first twenty signatures were obtained, names were forwarded her in such numbers that it was impossible for one person to keep the records. Mrs. Spooner wrote numerous letters to experts throughout the country, and secured valuable facts that resulted in the formation of this League. The following tribute to her work is copied from an editorial in a Boston paper:—
"The brave attacks that have been made by a Massachusetts woman against prison evils interfering with physical, moral, and mental improvement, have not merely been approved in this country, but they have attracted attention on the other side of the ocean. Now, through her efforts, a tour of investigation is being made through the South to inquire into prison systems and the measures that are used to reform criminals of both sexes. The camp life, for instance, with its vicious environments, offers little chance for better living or embracing any religious instruction. The men in chain gangs who are hired out for work and exposed to the public gaze and cruel criticism do not, as a rule, know the meaning of the word 'encouragement.' Their existence is often a hell on earth, and the wonder is, they survive its degradation as long as they do. The hope of improving and elevating inmates of prisons may be fallacious, sentimental: but, unless improvement is achieved by some such endeavor, humanity happier in its surroundings must be the sufferer. It is to vigilant reform that North, South, East, and West now look for inspiration for the ways and means that will elevate character, even when paying its penalty for crime."
The League does not rest content that the agitation has abolished the long-approved gallows, nor does it accept as true that electrocution is one step in advance.
Mrs. Spooner has presented able arguments before the Joint Judiciary Committee of the Massachusetts Legislature, has arranged many hearings, distributed literature, and written hundreds of articles upon the subject so near her heart. She has received numerous requests from libraries for copies of her sociological writings.
No higher estimate of this work of charity can be found than in the annual report of the penal institutions commissioner to the mayor of the city of Boston in 1899, under the head of "Reform of Women Inmates." "A most encouraging work has been done by Mrs. Florence Garrettson Spooner, the President of the Prison Reform League. Recognizing her earnest sympathy for female prisoners, I appointed her in the early part of 1898 to do such work as missionary among the female inmates of the House of Correction as she might think proper looking toward their reformation. I have been much pleased with her work there. The most hardened women have softened under the beneficent influence with which she has surrounded them. No better measure of her work can be shown than the decrease in the punishments among the class with which she works."
In literary work and on the platform as a lecturer she is straightforward and perfectly at ease in discussing all phases and points of prison reform. Because of her tact, amiability, and encouragement to prisoners she has the confidence of officials and special privileges to study human nature from the inside of the prison, accorded to no other woman in the State, prison commissioners excepted.
She was appointed by Governor Greenhalge one of the colonial committee of twelve from Massachusetts to the Cotton States and International Exposition at Atlanta, Ga. Mrs. Spooner is now in the prime of life and in active service. She has received the spontaneous cooperation of others in her noble work.
Her husband, Henry T. Spooner, a studious, busy man, devoted to his books, gives cordial sympathy and practical support to the work in which his wife is engaged. Mr. Spooner was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., son of Henry Pierson and Emma (Brittan) Spooner. His father was a descendant of the Aldens, Germaynes, and Cottons. His mother was the daughter of Thomas Standfast Brittan, a clergyman who left England and became rector of a church in Brooklyn.
In the annual report of the penal institutions commissioner, Alpheus Sanford writes to the Hon. Patrick A. Collins, Mayor of the city of Boston, that Mrs. Spooner was known throughout the House of Correction as the "women's
missionary friend," recommending that the results of her work be recognized in future and designated the Florence Spooner Prison Mission.
"The initial and dominant impulse, abiding power, and persistent energy which characterize the reform work of Mrs. Spooner are not merely the result of humanitarian feelings and philanthropic tendencies. They are largely due to her vivid conception of the religious duty of helping the weak and erring in the spirit and purpose of the great evangelical teacher and model of brotherly love, all-embracing charity, and zeal for the happiness of human souls in time and eternity."