First Annual Report of the Trustees of the State Industrial School for Girls at Lancaster

Stab-stitched 8vo in printed wraps, 92pp. Frontispiece view of the school grounds, which included several buildings and farmland. About Very Good with chipping to the spine ends and creasing to wraps, faint residual smokiness. Scarce; OCLC lists 1 copy at Brown.

The report includes budgetary information and background about the school's mission, disciplinary practices, comparison to other reform institutions, and a "Farmer's Report" on the school's agricultural operations. It includes several case studies and anecdotes illustrating girls' repentance--one scene has a young girl , one of the little girls expressing "sorrow that she had not always been a good girl, and desired to know how she could have her sins forgiven, and go to heaven when she died." She set off a chain reaction amongst the other girls (33).

State Industrial School for Girls at Lancaster was established a year after the Ohio Reform School for Boys, which combined agricultural labor with schooling and established the boys in "family" groups. The Girls' school was modeled on the same principles, prioritizing reform over punishment. The report includes statistics about the girls' backgrounds with attention to their parents' education and incarceration rates (in addition to age, nationality, etc). 

"It is exclusively for girls, and not only so, but for girls of a particular description. It is not to interfere with the rights and duties of the orphan asylum or the alms house on the one hand, or with the rightful claims of the prison or house of correction on the other. It is designed for those who are wayward, obstinate, or who from the poverty, ignorance, neglect or abuse of parents, are exposed to, or have become, vagrants, or have taken the initiatory steps in crime, and to save them from inevitable ruin, and from becoming a nuisance to society." (6)