Dissertation Information for Lee S. PolanksyNAME:
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SCHOOL: ADVISORS: COMMITTEE MEMBERS: MPACT Status: Fully Complete Title: "For it made me a lady": The Georgia Training School for Girls and the delinquent girl, 1914--1922 Abstract: During the Progressive Era, Georgia's new middle classes gave rise to a group of social reformers including religious groups, women's clubs, and social workers. Women's clubs, in particular, were essential in starting a network of social services, especially in child welfare. Around 1912, reformers perceived a surge in "wayward girls," working class white girls who acted in ways considered inappropriate for Southern white "ladies." They ran away from home, refused to obey their parents, went with boys, and even prostituted. The state's reformers utilized "progressive" and maternalist arguments about social reform to validate participation in the political arena and to justify their welfare work. Unlike many Northern reformers, however, this group did not offer a critique of the social conditions necessitating child welfare work. Rather, their intent was to reify the existing Southern hierarchy. White labor, they argued, was needed across the region, and white girls who became prostitutes or criminals would harm the future of the race. A "training school" would re-train white girls to become useful wives and mothers. Subscribing to Northern progressive ideas about juvenile rehabilitation, the group established the Georgia Training School for Girls in 1914. From 1914, until the 1921 resignation of its first long-term superintendent, the Georgia Training School for Girls (GTS), housed a total of 356 girls, mainly committed for sexual offenses. |
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