Freedman (History/Stanford), author of a previous book on prison
reform, tackles the commanding Miriam Van Waters, an early prison
reformer and feminist. Van Waters grew up in Oregon, the eldest
child of an open-minded minister and a mother who suffered from
nerves. After obtaining her undergraduate and master's degrees in
philosophy, Van Waters obtained a Ph.D. in anthropology. Whether it
was from some innate sense of duty or from years of caring for her
siblings and her mother, Van Waters became an ardent believer that
even the most hardened female criminal was salvageable. She
returned to the West Coast for a tour of duty in California's
juvenile court system, where she obtained the rank of judge and was
famous for her tongue-lashings of men who had abandoned pregnant
girlfriends. She left in 1932 with her adopted child, Sarah, and
made her way to the Massachusetts Reformatory for Women, where she
would become superintendent. A compelling presence, Van Waters used
such basic tools as trust and friendship to effect a change in the
prisoners, whom she elected to call "students." This period of Van
Waters's work is the most exciting, complete with a political
effort to remove her from office on charges that she condoned
homosexuality in the prison. However, Freedman avoids a fuller
account of Van Waters's prison and focuses instead upon proving,
with diary entries and letters, that Van Waters was herself a
lesbian. The reformer's letters to Geraldine Thompson, her
benefactor and a friend to Eleanor Roosevelt, are frankly obvious,
and the legacy of Van Waters's prison reform becomes a bit lost
amid long evaluations of this relationship. A fascinating and
brilliant woman, whose personality shines through sometimes
plodding and digressive prose. (Kirkus Reviews)
Celebrated prison reformer Miriam Van Waters made history for her
sensational battle to retain the superintendency of the
Massachusetts Reformatory for Women in 1949. Maternal Justice
provides a compelling biography of this early lesbian activist by
moving beyond the controversy to tell the story of a remarkable
woman whose success rested upon the power of her own charismatic
leadership. Estelle B. Freedman draws from Van Waters's diaries,
letters, and personal papers to recreate her complex personal life,
unveiling the disparity between Van Waters's public persona and her
agonized private soul. With the power and elegance of a novel,
Maternal Justice illuminates this historical context, casting light
on the social welfare tradition, on women's history, on the
American feminist movement, and on the history of sexuality.
Maternal Justice is as much a work of history as it is biography,
bringing to life not only a remarkable woman but also the complex
political and social milieu within which she worked and
lived.--Kelleher Jewett, The Nation This sympathetic biography
reclaims Van Waters for history.--Publishers Weekly The Van Waters
legacy, as Freedman gracefully presents, is that she cared about
the lives of women behind bars. It is a strikingly unfashionable
sentiment today.--Jane Meredith Adams, San Francisco Chronicle Book
Review, Editor's Recommended Selection This finely crafted
biography is both an engrossing read and a richly complicated
account of a reformer whose work . . . bridged the eras of
voluntarist charitable activism and professional social
service.--Sherri Broder, Women's Review of Books This is a
sympathetic, highly personal biography, revealing of both the
author's responses to her subject's life and, in considerable
detail, Van Waters's family traumas, illnesses, and love
affairs.--Elizabeth Israels Perry, Journal of American History
General
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