Thomas Tunney was Superintendent of the New York State Training School for Girls in Hudson, NY from 1964 to 1972. He was 90 years old at the time oral historian Suzanne...
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New York State Training School for Girls, 1904 – 1975
In 1904, when the New York House of Refuge for Women in Hudson, NY closed, the New York State Training School for Girls took its place to establish a separate...
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Hudson Correctional Facility, 1976 – Present
A year after the New York State Training School for Girls at Hudson was closed, the Hudson Correctional Facility took its place. Opened in October 1976 as a minimum-security (and later...
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Josephine Shaw Lowell and House of Refuge for Women (1887 – 1904)
In the midst of the nation’s first great depression that began in 1873 with the collapse of the New York City financial markets, the House of Refuge for Women was built...
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Bearing Witness
Last July, a box of documents from the New York State Training School for Girls—intake forms, letters, photographs, and other administrative paperwork from the 1920s––was discovered by Lisa Durfee at...
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Understanding and Preserving a Community’s Heritage
On January 6th, 2012, oral historian Suzanne Snider interviewed Timothy Dunleavy, a resident and business owner in Hudson, NY. Tim is also the President of Historic Hudson, a non-profit organization...
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People Get a Great Idea and It Doesn’t Materialize…
David Kinlock, a resident of Albany and former inmate at Hudson Correctional Facility, was interviewed by oral historian Suzanne Snider on April 4th, 2012. David was born in Schenectady, NY...
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First Letter Home
December 28, 1930 Dear Mother, How did you enjoy the party the other night. I wish I could see Mrs. Bradley. But I got a Xmas card from Mr and Mrs....
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“They Are All Ellas…”
In an article she wrote for the New York Times in 1996, journalist Nina Bernstein tells the story of famed jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald’s experience at the Training School for...
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Closure of the Girls Training School
a local perspective… In the few months before its closing on August 18th, 1975, Hudson residents, Training School employees, and elected officials waged a campaign to stop the closure. The...
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How Jan Kerouac ‘Escaped’ the Girls Training School
Legendary Beat Generation novelist and poet Jack Kerouac and his second wife Joan Haverty were separated when they had a daughter, Janet Michele Kerouac, on February 16, 1952. Mother and...
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The Delaney Report (1915): Overview
On February 1, 1915, John H. Delaney, Commissioner of the New York Department of Efficiency and Economy (NYDEE), released a report roundly condemning the New York State Training School for...
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