"In danger of becoming morally depraved": single black women, working-class black families, and New York state's wayward minor laws, 1917-1928.

• Jurisdiction: United States
• Author: Hicks, Cheryl D.
• Date: 01 June 2003

INTRODUCTION

In 1923, Gail Lewis attended a local Fourth of July party. (1) Instead of coming directly home after realizing that she had broken her curfew, the black seventeen-year-old New York native decided to stay out all night and face her parents, especially her father whom she feared would be angered by her actions, the following day. (2) Clearly, Lewis's broken curfew and night away from home violated her parents' rules, but her actions also indicated, in her parents' estimation, her potential for future inappropriate behavior. When she finally returned home, her parents had already notified the police. (3) Although school officials reported her skirmishes with fellow classmates, Lewis was considered well behaved and not a juvenile delinquent. (4) In fact, when notified about her arrest, Lewis's pastor replied in disbelief: "I was never more surprised.... I am certain that there must have been some evil influence in her straying away." (5) Lewis's parents' fear of that "evil influence" directed their response to their daughter's behavior, as they "entered a complaint" against her (6) for violation of New York State's wayward minor law. (7) This statute criminalized female disobedience and sexual delinquency as a proactive means of protecting young women from urban vice. (8) Lewis was arrested and imprisoned in the New York State Reformatory for Women at Bedford (Bedford) for being "wilfully disobedient," but more importantly from her parents' perspective, for being "in danger of becoming morally depraved." (9)

The Lewis case reveals a relatively unexplored issue within the scholarship on early-twentieth-century urban-reform campaigns--namely, black working-class families' anxieties about single black women's moral behavior and proactive attempts to protect them. Expanding our understanding and conception of social welfare reform and black urban life, this Article examines how some black working-class families--who were not prominent in social welfare reform and who were not considered black elites--actively participated in the efforts to protect and, ultimately, to control young black women. Shifting the historical discussion of black women's protection, which has usually centered on the efforts of black and white reformers, (10) this Article also shows how black working-class families attempted to protect the reputations of their young women and to monitor their lifestyles. In this sense, the single black woman was not just the lone southern migrant or independent urban dweller--who, reformers argued, needed moral guidance and domestic training in order to adjust to, and survive in, cities--but also the young black woman living with her family in the city. This Article, as a result, highlights family members' concerns regarding morality as well as their proactive attempts to maintain a semblance of stability within their communities. (11) Moreover, this Article argues that the complexity of the black working-class experience included a sense of entitlement to state services as well as the unexpected, and in many cases negative, consequences of aligning with the State.

Gail Lewis's parents' use of New York's wayward minor laws clearly demonstrates how some black working-class families consciously turned to the courts to regulate what they defined as the transgressive behavior of their female relatives. Indeed, the clashes between young women and their relatives over what they viewed as appropriate behavior caused tremendous conflict within black families. The legal, and ultimately unequal, relationship between young black women, their parents and kin, and the State dramatically affected black families' expectations from and experiences with the State. (12) Examining the ways in which black communities interpreted the law and used the State to regulate single women raises new questions about black women, their families, and urban reform. When their individual efforts to discipline young women failed, why did some families turn to the State for support? How did New York State reformers and administrators respond to the needs and requests of working-class black families? And finally, in light of the prejudices that reformers held when dealing with working-class persons generally, (13) how did the race-based choices reformers made affect black relatives' abilities to use the law successfully to protect and to monitor their young women? In addressing these issues, I examine the fifteen existing case files of black women sentenced to Bedford between 1917 and 1928. (14) While not purporting to present a representative sample of black working-class families in New York during this period, this Article's use of Bedford's case files reveals a need to challenge many of the general claims made about working-class black families, specifically concerning their structure, concerns, and ability to assert their own moral voice. (15)

This Article addresses how black working-class families sought to protect and police their female relatives by using New York State's wayward minor laws between 1917 and 1928. Examining urban reform through the actions of black working-class parents and relatives illuminates how black communities interpreted the law and used the State to regulate their female kin's behavior. This focus shifts the historical discussion of black women's protection away from the efforts of elite black and white reformers and addresses the concerns of black working-class families. In doing so, this Article argues that the complexity of the black working-class experience included a sense of entitlement to state services as well as the unexpected, and in many cases, negative consequences of aligning oneself with the State. Black families' active involvement in the reform process, through the use of the wayward minor laws, illustrates how these families enacted their grave concerns and anxieties about the reputations and lifestyles of their female kin through the State. This level of involvement also challenges general assertions about working-class black communities' capacity for, and ability to, enact moral stature. Nevertheless, racism within the criminal justice system--segregated rehabilitative institutions and limited probation servies--underlied the basic attempts of those relatives who used the wayward minor laws to regulate their female kin's behavior and stabilize family relationships. While there were some instances where the State addressed parental concerns successfully, unequal power dynamics between the State and the working class usually resulted in parents and guardians losing their natural and legal authority over their female kin.

1. THE WAYWARD MINOR LAWS AND THEIR RELEVANCE FOR BLACK FAMILIES

   The New York State wayward minor laws (16) provided a means by which working-class families could address the questionable behavior of their female kin. This Article focuses on the laws' interactions with black families. (17)

   1. The Historical Development of the Wayward Minor Laws

      New York's wayward minor laws date back to an 1882 New York City municipal law (18) that was "designed to control those girls from fourteen to twenty-one who, charged with being prostitutes, had professed a desire to reform," by committing them to reformatory institutions. (19) In 1886, the New York State legislature amended the law to include incorrigible female behavior more generally. (20) At this time the law became known as the "incorrigible girl statute." (21) The 1886 law enabled parents and legal guardians (as well as the police) to commit young women whom they believed were delinquent through their testimony in court. (22) The statute criminalized incorrigible behavior and noted that those young women indicted under the law should be committed to a private reformatory institution. (23) Magistrates could sentence young women who were at least twelve years old upon a finding that these women were found in a "reputed" house of prostitution, were "frequenting the company of thieves or prostitutes," were found "associating with vicious and dissolute persons," or were "willfully disobedient to parent or guardian, and [thus] in danger of becoming morally depraved." (24)

      Legislators consistently modified the statute, (25) and in 1923 the legislature amended the statute for "the commitment, custody and control of wayward minors." (26) At this time, the law became known as the "wayward minor statute." (27) Under the 1923 statute, young women between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one could be committed under the same conditions as the earlier incorrigibility statutes, with the addition that those women found to be "habitually addicted to the use of drugs or the intemperate use of intoxicating liquors" could also be indicted. (28) When young men were first covered by the statute in 1925, (29) court officers and administrators reinforced the idea that, like young women who had been subject to the law since 1882, they were not seen as having "committed [a] serious offense against the law, but they were certainly [thought to be] entering on the road which would eventually find them in its clutches." (30)

      While defining the parameters of inappropriate female behavior, the laws specifically encouraged parental and community monitoring of young women's behavior by providing a means to discipline morally wayward and rebellious girls through the courts. The laws from 1882 to 1920 provided that local private reformatories, like the Protestant Episcopal House of Mercy, the Roman Catholic House of Good Shepherd, the New York Magdalen Benevolent Society, and the Jewish Protectory and Aid Society, could serve as the sites for young women's moral rehabilitation. (31) Although Bedford opened in 1901, and received young incorrigible women at that time, (32) it was not until 1920 that the state legislature revised the incorrigibility statute to allow courts to send young women to Bedford. (33) Young women who caused continuous...