ADDRESS DELIVERED AT THE COLORED DEPARTMENT OF THE HOUSE OF REFUGE.ON DECEMBER 31st, 1849

Kelley, William D.

Verlag: T.K. and P.G. Collins, Printers, Philadelphia, 1850

24pp. Dbd. Light foxing to titlepage, otherwise clean internally. Very good. In the present address William Kelley, a Pennsylvania politician and noted jurist, lauds the state's reform of its penal code to emphasize rehabilitation, providing the "colored" inmates "with instruction in some available trade or calling.the means of gaining an honest livelihood.supplanting the whipping-post by the moral instructor." Two days after first receiving inmates, Kelley celebrates the launching of this "Refuge for Juvenile Colored Delinquents" as "a home, a school, and a church for the offending offspring of the poorest, most ignorant, most degraded, and suffering members of our community." Kelley also chronicles the history of Pennsylvania's reform of the treatment of juvenile delinquents. Urging greater provision of educational opportunities he counsels, "Crime is not the inevitable consequence of ignorance, but they have close and important relations." Founded by the Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons (later known as the Pennsylvania Prison Society), the House of Refuge for Colored Children was first opened in 1828 as a humane and rehabilitative alternative to adult prison for young offenders. Although the institution was not founded with a specific race policy, no black child was admitted to the House for more than twenty years. Cecile P. Frey notes in the JOURNAL OF NEGRO HISTORY that from 1828 "[u]ntil 1850, when the House of Refuge for Colored Children was opened in Philadelphia, youthful offenders of that race were placed in adult prisons rather than in any separate facility" (p.10). William D. Kelley, a Democrat at the time he gave this speech, became disgusted with the Pierce Administration and Stephen A. Douglas who, as the engineer of the Missouri Compromise, opened the door to slavery in Kansas. Kelley was an anti-slavery Democrat, but became a founder of the Republican Party, where his opposition to the extension of slavery and his emancipationist views were more welcome. COHEN 4489. LIBRARY COMPANY, AFRO-AMERICANA 5466. SABIN 37272 (note). Cecile P. Frey, "The House of Refuge for Colored Children" in JOURNAL OF NEGRO HISTORY Vol. 66, No. 1 (Spring 1981), pp.10-25. Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers WRCAM56279

Bibliografische Details

Titel: ADDRESS DELIVERED AT THE COLORED DEPARTMENT ...
Verlag: T.K. and P.G. Collins, Printers, Philadelphia
Erscheinungsdatum: 1850