Pictured above are girls outside a building for the Philadelphia House of Refuge in a photo taken between 1908 and 1909. This image and most of the ones that follow were probably collected and labelled by Helen Glenn Tyson, a social worker at the time. The photobook is located in the archival collection of Louise Stevens Bryant, a public health professional. Bryant and Glenn represent the type of woman–white, middle-class, educated–who was active in social reform movements as a way of carving out their own professional space. These women were then key in shaping the bounds of criminality for racially white women, especially. For example, although reformatories may not seem immediately connected to someone concerned with public health, it’s presence in her archive reinforces the connection that reformers drew between one’s environment and becoming a criminal which, in part, stemmed from the higher crime rates of poor slums areas within cities.

Questions

As outsiders looking into this scene, what does it mean to you to have the point of view of an observer?

Looking at the landscape of this image, how does it reflect the ideas about setting that were used in the building of the Lancaster Industrial School for Girls back in the 1850s?

What about this image does and does not evoke the feeling of imprisonment?