Sherborn, MA 20 or 22 August 1893

Inspired by a prison

From Metcalf, Massachusetts Swami Vivekananda wrote a very long letter to Alasinga Perumal in Madras—dated 20 August—and one of the surprises it contained was an enthusiastic report about a prison he had seen for women:

They don't call it prison but reformatory here. It is the grandest thing I have seen in America. How the inmates are benevolently treated, how they are reformed and sent back as useful members of society; how grand, how beautiful, you must see to believe!

Swamiji was not easily excited about social reform projects. He could usually spot personal motive behind most “do-good-ism.” What really really set him on fire, though, was meeting someone endowed with gutsy, selfless dedication. Who stirred up his inspiration and how did she manage it?

He wrote, “Yesterday [19 August] Mrs. Johnson, the lady superintendent of the women's prison, was here [Breezy Meadows].” The "lady superintendent" was Ellen Cheney Johnson, and the prison was the State Reformatory for Women located in Sherborn—a neighboring village. Swamiji's letter proceeded to describe his evening visit to the reformatory, so he probably wrote most of it late at night, freshly inspired by the day's events. Keep in mind, however, that it was not unusual to date a letter when you began it, but then add to it over the course of a day or so before posting it.

It is likely that Johnson's close proximity made her one of the first to respond to Kate Sanborn's invitation to meet the swami. In fact, on their way out to see the Hunnewell gardens, they drove right past the Sherborn post office. Local postal delivery was quick in those days. Evidently Johnson called at the farm to meet Swamiji the next day. She was an excellent equestrian, and she may have ridden over on horseback. Johnson was a snap judge of character, and being duly impressed with Swamiji as a "man of the cloth," she invited him to tour the reformatory and give the evening talk at chapel.

Source: Courier Post, Camden, NJ 2 August 1893

An article in the 2 August 1893 Camden Courier Post by Annie Isabel Willis described life at the Sherborn reformatory in detail. This report stated that the inmates went to chapel every day. Previously I had assumed that Swamiji would have addressed the inmates at their regular service on the evening of Sunday 20 August. However, the item below, suggests that Swamiji gave his talk on Tuesday evening.

Source: Boston Evening Transcript 23 August 1893

Newspaper reports of social events in the nineteenth century were a little behind today's instant media. M. L. Burke reprinted an item from the Boston Evening Transcript dated 23 August, the clipping above, which stated: "Last evening he addressed the inmates of the Sherborn Reformatory for Women upon the manners, customs and mode of living in his country."

Source: New York Tribune 25 August 1893

The New York Tribune announcement dated 25 August is less specific, stating that Swamiji visited the reformatory "the other day" and examined it "with great interest." The report naming Swamiji as the guest of Kate Sanborn, appeared with slight variations in numerous newspapers across the country, but the least abridged version was found in the Arizona Republican, below:

Source: Arizona Republican 30 August 1893

Apart from a tardy date, the Arizona Republican gives comparatively more information about the reformatory tour. Some have wondered why Swamiji’s visit to a Massachusetts prison was reported as far away as Arizona. Kate Sanborn had spent March through July 1893 traveling, writing and lecturing in California while promoting her newest book, A Truthful Woman in Southern California. There were dozens of articles about her throughout the state during that period. It seems reasonable to assume that she or her publisher, D. Appleton & Company, maintained her press connections there. On 9 September, the Los Angeles Times printed an announcement about her new book, and the next day, the Times printed the news that Swamiji was her guest.

Source: New England Magazine January 1900

Ellen Cheney Johnson belonged to a cadre of women who had campaigned for decades to get Massachusetts to set up separate prison facilities for women. She had been a state prison commissioner for twenty years when the Sherborn facility finally opened. Clara Barton, founder of the Red Cross, was asked to supervise it. She lasted eight months. As one person wrote, she identified more with "the free air of the battle field, following her red cross, than with prison walls." Barton handed over the keys to Johnson.

A great gift that Johnson brought to her job as a prison superintendent was the ability to put herself in an inmate's shoes and sense that person's disposition for trust. Once an incident investigation revealed that a matron was at fault. She said: "If I had been the prisoner, I should have knocked that matron down." Another time, all the inmates were roused at midnight, and told to walk single file to the superintendent's office—no explanation given. As they filed through the office they were rewarded with the extraordinary sight and fragrance of a night-blooming cereus in full flower.

Samuel Barrows wrote an article for New England Magazine on “The Massachusetts Prison System” in March 1893 and he had high praise for Johnson's work: “Could Elizabeth Fry visit the Massachusetts Reformatory Prison for Women she would find some of her early dreams for the education and reformation of women realized.” Barrows described her presence at Sherborn reformatory:

“Such a personality presides over and pervades this institution. She is its brain, its heart, its hands. Her will, her inspiration, her fertility of resource, her radiating geniality are felt through its length and breadth. It beams in the office, in the workshop, in the chapel; it comes with its invigoration into the cell of the probationer and it is felt in the engine-room as certainly as in the bakery. To be the successful superintendent of such an institution, one must not be only a disciplinarian, a philanthropist, a good judge of human nature, and a physician of souls, but also a thorough business woman. It is seldom that these qualities are so well combined in one person, whether man or woman, as they are in Mrs. Ellen C. Johnson, who for nine years has been the superintendent of this institution.”

The Sherborn reformatory was about two miles from South Framingham station between Loring Drive and Irving Street. It was about seven miles from Breezy Meadows to the reformatory by horse and buggy. Either way, by road or by rail, it was not far to go. In 1942, the Sherborn reformatory land was accessioned by the city of Framingham. Irving Square, near the South Framingham station at the start of Irving Street, is shown in the postcard.

Sherborn Reformatory, built in 1877, was designed to hold 500 women, but there were about 250 women held there in 1893. Today this medium security prison complex known as MCI-Framingham houses over 650 female inmates and is rated as overcrowded. In 1893 the grounds and outbuildings were extensive, including a dairy, poultry coops, vegetable gardens, orchards and silk-worm culture.

Source: New England Magazine January 1900

Johnson would have received Swamiji in her office. She was accustomed to giving tours through the reformatory. If you are running an experimental, state-funded enterprise you have to keep your project in the public eye so the legislators will value the work you are doing.

Johnson lived on site. Her residence was connected to the prison via a covered archway. She had to walk a mile to make her rounds through the three wings of the prison.

Source: New England Magazine January 1900

The clean, well-lighted, well-equipped workrooms and kitchens, the nursery for the infants, the daily school lessons, the hospital and dispensary, the farm with its well cared for animals, all impressed Swamiji greatly. Barrows wrote: “In point of cleanliness, it might pass for a Shaker settlement”

Plus, Johnson would have explained to him her behavioral grading system whereby inmates earned advanced privileges, and her parole system for outside employment. For Swamiji, the contrast between Massachusetts's advanced reformatory program and penal conditions in India could not be more heartrending:

And, oh, how my heart ached to think of what we think of the poor, the low, in India. They have no chance, no escape, no way to climb up. The poor, the low, the sinner in India have no friends, no help—they cannot rise, try however they may. They sink lower and lower every day, they feel the blows showered upon them by a cruel society, and they do not know whence the blow comes. They have forgotten that they too are men. And the result is slavery. Thoughtful people within the last few years have seen it, but unfortunately laid it at the door of the Hindu religion, and to them, the only way of bettering is by crushing this grandest religion of the world.

Swamiji’s heartfelt response to the plight of the poor totally eclipsed his impressions of the beautiful Hunnewell gardens shown in the previous post. If he had seen Wellesley College campus, as I speculated, any thought to mention it was obliterated by his enthusiasm for the uplifted inmates at Sherborn. A fine college for privileged young women could not compare to a second chance at life for girls gone wrong.

Source: New England Magazine January 1900

This is the chapel where Swamiji addressed the women inmates of Sherborn. There are two large paintings on the wall, one of Jesus forgiving the condemned woman and the other of an allegorical scene titled "A little child shall lead them." Irish women outnumbered all the other inmates two to one, which is indicative of the class conflict in Massachusetts. Normally separate Catholic and Protestant services were held on Sunday morning. On Sunday evening inmates met in chapel to hear distinguished guests—such as Phillips Brooks and Mary Livermore—and once, of course, they heard Swami Vivekananda.

In this photo, the rostrum is decorated for the memorial service of Superintendent Johnson. She died in London on 28 June 1899, where she had gone to address the International Congress of Women. She had been superintendent for fifteen years. The day before she died, she described in her address to the Congress in London, a New Year's eve custom she had established at the prison. At 11:30 p.m. the women were granted the freedom to come to chapel—only if they wanted to—where Johnson held a simple service of Psalms, prayer and hymn singing. At midnight there was a silent meditation. No attendance was taken, but invariably every inmate came.