“it made me feel very bad at you saying my mother didnt know how to keep her house in a fit condition. You said I had a good chance of getting a good education I certainly have. Its a very good place indeed for young girls”

In this letter from Sadie Rubin, Sadie expresses her sorrow and confusion over Florence Cross’s negative perception of her mother and home life. In this letter, she repeatedly asks Cross to explain why she has asked Sadie to stop talking to her mother, pointing to the emotional strain or turmoil that youth go through within these institutions, as well as the attempts to manage Sadie’s life at a personal level extending beyond the reformatory. In this same segment, we also get an idea of Sadie’s largely positive experience in the reformatory. As someone who came into the reformatory illiterate, Sadie dictates her letters and someone else writes them, which is evidenced by the consistent shift in handwriting across her letters. This creates space for examining and potentially troubling these documents as direct personal reflections as we try to imagine where the institution may insert itself.

Questions

How do Cross’s comments about Sadie’s mother and home potentially reflect narratives about common social anxieties in the city?

What does authenticity mean for an archival document with multiple possible influences/voices like this?

How does the different power dynamic (social worker and incarcerated youth) come through in this document?