Narrator: Welcome back to Isaac Hopper’s Diary: Declassified. In this episode "Mary McHugh: A Woman Incarcerated". I am Klevisa Loci, a student at St. Lawrence University. In this Podcast you will hear the story of Mary McHugh recorded by Isaac Hopper in 1845. Then I will then dive into some research of Women during the Mid 1800s and how they were perceived in society specifically women in prison. Now, let us jump back into Mary McHugh: A Woman Incarcerated.

In Isaac Hoppers records, he mentions several notable cases, including the case of a woman called Mary McHugh.

Eliza Farnham, the matron at Sing Sing prison addressed a letter to Hopper on behalf of Mary McHugh on the night of June 2nd, 1845. McHugh's two-year sentence had recently been commuted, according to Farnham. Mary McHugh needed assistance since she was unable to care for herself due to a serious mental condition that she had acquired during her nine-month incarceration. After hearing this tale, Hopper immediately went to see McHugh and brought her to the city so he could assist in taking care of her, especially since she hadn't eaten since her release.

According to Hopper and Farnham's accounts Mary McHugh's emotional and physical state after being released from custody, incarceration had a detrimental effect on her. What could have possibly justified Mary McHugh’s treatment? In his files, Hopper had a copy of an article that Lydia Maria Child, a friend and coworker of his wrote using his version of the events to describe Mary McHugh's imprisonment. Lydia’s claim was that Mary McHugh had moved to the US from Canada and worked as a domestic before being imprisoned.

Mary was a dedicated worker and always got the job done, according to everyone who knew her. Mary’s employer guaranteed her a salary of $1 per week when she was first hired. However, after a few weeks of working for this family, her employer advised her that she would only be getting 62 cents per week. When McHugh asked to be paid fairly for the tasks she was completing, her employer refused and prevented her from looking for work with another family that would pay her at a higher rate from. Mary McHugh's acts, according to Child, were a direct result of this abuse. 

Quoter’s Voice: Child wrote in her article, quote: “This oppressive and altogether unjustifiable conduct excited Mary’s resentment. Partly in anger, and partly from the idea that her employers intended to wrong her, she hid a silver can and some spoons in the woodhouse. There is every reason to
believe that she had no intention of stealing them, and she was not aware that such
a step subjected her to the danger of a criminal prosecution.”

Narrator: If Mary McHugh's employer had treated her fairly and paid her what she deserved, it's possible that she wouldn't have done what she did. For Mary McHugh she had no intention of taking those items for her own gain. Instead, she acted out as a result of a quick decision she formed in a fit of rage over what she thought she really deserved. Mary McHugh's experiences therefore show the perception of women not truly being like the stereotypical unproblematic women that was constantly being preached in the mid 1800s, this shows how women were overlooked, which neglects the idea to consider the possible reasons that may have driven women to commit crimes, that otherwise would have likely not occurred.

Quoter’s Voice: Child tells us, quote: “A sense of disgrace which her imprudence had brought on herself and family, and especially the anguish it would inflict on her mother’s heart, completely broke the spirit of the poor sufferer.”

Narrator: The emphasis Hopper and Child laid on the effect of Mary McHugh's "disgusting" conduct that would have an impact on the reputation of her family making these words especially interesting. They pay particular attention to the effects Mary's behavior might have laid on her mother. This terminology strongly suggests the sense that an adolescent’s behavior in the family was a direct outcome of their upbringing, especially the moral example set by their mother. Despite the fact that Hopper and Child appeared to reject some of the ideas associated with the idea of women not being like the stereotypical woman who never got in any trouble,  and who worked, cleaned, and took care of the minors meant that they are looked down upon and they also appeared to have internalized many of the widely held beliefs regarding the causes of criminal behavior and how the behavior of one member of the family negatively affected the entire family, and even more so the mother. This was directly stated in the Hopper Diaries.

Now to dive into the world of the women during the Mid 1800s and how they were perceived in society, specifically women in prison. This will aid us in having a better understanding of McHugh’s background.

Quoter’s Voice: Prisons for Women by Nicole Hahn Rafter: “In the late eighteenth century, city lockups made little or no effort to separate prisoners by sex or according to the other criteria (such as age, race, and offense seriousness) by which prisoners have been classified and segregated in more recent times” (Hahn Rafter 133).

Narrator: This same minimal effort was also contributed when separating criminals by the gravity of their offenses, which was also a huge contributor to an already dangerous environment. Safety and separation were not in place now that males weren’t the only appearance being incarcerated.

Quoter’s Voice: “Female prisoners, on the other, were confined together in a single attic room above the institution’s kitchen. For a number of years, they had no matron but rather were "surprised” by the head of the kitchen below. Food was sent up to them once a day, and once a day the slops were removed. No provision was made for privacy or exercise, and although the women were assigned some sewing work, for the most part they were left to their own devices in the "tainted and sickly atmosphere" (New York Committee on State Prisons 1832, p.9) of their crowded quarters. The wretchedness of their lot came briefly to the public attention when Rachel Welch, impregnated while in prison and severely flogged when she was about five months pregnant, later died (Lewis 1965, pp.94-95). With the ensuing scandal, conditions improved somewhat, in part through the hiring of a matron.

Narrator: The lack of safety and care for the placement of women who were incarcerated during the mid 1800s was very clear by this quote evidence. If there was a system in place for women to be separated just like the male prisoners were from each other than this indecent most likely wouldn’t have happened. There was little to no supervisions over the women incarcerated because of this Welch was impregnated, beat, and she evenly died. It took this tragic incident to happen in order to get a matron in place for the women incarcerated.

Let's discuss the phrase "Whores and Thieves." According to L. Mara Dodge, the first time these words appeared was around the beginning of the nineteenth century. These phrases were often said for several reasons, including the fact that women were able to be incarcerated at the time. The majority of the women who were imprisoned received their sentences as a result of committed theft or engagement in prostitution in order to have the ability to support their families fully. This was the point at which the labels "whore" and "thief" originated and were frequently used against women. Due to the prison systems not being accommodated to having women in jail, these terms were developed to tear-down women for being in those situations.

L. Mara Dodge offers an approach to institutional history in her insightful book on women in Illinois state prisons and reformatories from the years 1835 to 2000. This approach reflects both the most recent trends in criminal justice studies and pioneers’ new insights on how prison histories can reveal much about the shifting definitions and expanding boundaries of proper femininity in the prison system.

She starts out with four chapters that chart the advancement of women in the Illinois prison system throughout the nineteenth century. These are the chapters following the social boom of crime and criminality. She continues this pattern of institutional storytelling followed by analysis across major aspects of her work. The analytical chapters, which center on issues like the gender-based presumptions held by parole board members, consistently turn out to be more advancing. Dodge has thoroughly searched state documents in order to prepare a report that spans 165 years. When it was possible, she added a personal interview with inmates, staff members, and wardens from the Illinois State Reformatory for Women to the archived material. The result is a well-researched study that looks at women's experiences throughout the whole criminal justice system, from policing decisions and the courts to variables influencing governors' pardons and parole boards. Future works should follow Dodge's method for writing about jail history, as they proved to be effective and insightful.

Across time in the U.S. Lesbians, single women, working-class women, African American women, and women living in non-traditional arrangements with males were more likely than middle-class white women who committed identical crimes to become targeted by the criminal justice system.

Dodge tells the story of Mary Wiser who was the only woman incarcerated for a one-year sentence amongst 85 male prisoners at a prison in Alton, Illinois in the year 1850. At that time, it was very unusual to see women in prison.

Quoter’s Voice: Dodge goes on to Quote: “by the 1850s, however, Illinois judges were sentencing women to prison for far more ordinary offenses primarily larceny, and women were becoming a permanent presence in the penitentiary for the first time”

Narrator: This goes to show how it took about 10 years for women in prisons to be more common in Illinois and even then, it was still a heavy adjustment because women were thrown into prisons that were accommodated only for men and it was very difficult to keep the women in these situations safe or even have the resources to begin with in order to provide the care they needed.  Dodge expresses how society was not accustomed to women being incarcerated, and how unprepared society was to deal with this change. Referring back to Mary McHugh’s incarceration and how she ties into L. Mara Dodge’s study of incarcerated women, McHugh’s situation is a direct example of how the prison systems and society were unprepared for the negative effects that resulted in Mary having detrimental effects on her mental and physical state. Although Mary’s situation took place in Sing Sing Prison (New York), L. Mara Dodge’s study focused on a prison in Alton, Illinois there were overlapping similarities between both locations in regard to the treatment of incarcerated women.

Today’s episode was written and produced by me, Klevisa Loci and thanks to Kirsten Sanchez for reading the quotes for this podcast, along with a special thank you professor to Liz Regosin, Eric Williams-Bergen and Nicole Roche, the podcasting team at St. Lawrence University. Be sure to check out the episode notes on the diary website, Isaac-Hopper.org. There you’ll find a source list for this episode, Thanks for listening!”