The New York Public Library will be closed from May 25 to May 27.
Women's Prison Association of New York.
Manuscripts and Archives Division
Restricted access; Manuscripts and Archives Division; Permit must be requested at the division indicated.
Records containing information about WPA clients in which they are personally identified are closed for 70 years.
Administrative records of the WPA which do not contain client data are closed for 15 years.
Collection consists of correspondence, minutes, reports, legislative bills, project files, client case files, financial records, photographs, and printed matter documenting the activities of the Women's Prison Association (WPA). Within the administrative records there are Executive Committee and Board of Directors minutes, 1888-1979 (with gaps); directors and staff correspondence and reports, 1845-1983 (with gaps); fundraising records, 1933-1973; scattered records of the Treasurer, 1869-1977; and auditors' reports, 1929-1977. Also, administrative files for all the major projects of the 1970s and a fairly complete set of annual reports, 1859-1981. Client case records (comprising about three-quarters of the collection) contain case books, rolls, registration cards, and samples of daily reports on residents of the Hopper Home. Case files for individual clients form the largest element of the client records andcontain information about closed cases from the 1920s to the 1970s.
The Women's Prison Association, founded in 1854, promotes improvement in the treatment of women prisoners in New York and offers rehabilitation assistance to ex-offenders.The Association also has proposed various reforms in the criminal justice system for women and has operated the Isaac T. Hopper Home since the mid-19th century, making itthe oldest women's "halfway house" in the U.S.
Ceramium rubrum (1843-53). NYPL Photography Collection.
One of 700,000 pictures in the NYPL Digital Gallery
