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...
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Who’s Punching the Clock?
Hudson, NY resident Debra Gallo sent in this wonderful photo of some of the people who made up the maintenance crew at the Girls Training School in 1954. Problem is...
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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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Happy Childhood, Broken Homes
Born and raised on a farm in Hudson, NY, Karen dePyster went to work at the New York State Training School for Girls in 1968, right after she graduated from...
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“But They All Come Back…” | Hudson Reentry Unit
In addition to its unique and rich history, Hudson Correctional Facility (HCF) has another feature that distinguishes it. Less than a year after Governor Eliot Spitzer’s plans to close the...
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House of Refuge for Women Founder Inspires New York City’s First Monument Dedicated to a Woman
As told by Joan Waugh in her book on the life of Josephine Shaw Lowell (Unsentimental Reformer,Harvard University Press, 1997): At noon on May 22, 1912, a granite fountain designed...
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Doing No Harm
Peter Tenerowicz, a lifelong resident of Hudson, NY, worked as a corrections officer (prison guard) at the Hudson Correctional Facility between 1981 and 2008. He was interviewed by oral historian...
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The More Things Change, The More They Stay the Same…Or Do They?
Echoing trends over a century ago, today’s reformers’ are critical of large juvenile prisons and aim to create small, ‘home-like’ environments for confined youth. In 1906, at the Seventh New...
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