Industrial School for Girls, Winthrop Hill, Hallowell, ca. 1919
Hubbard Free Library
The purpose of the school was thusly defined: "STATEMENT - The Maine Industrial School for Girls is designed as a refuge for viscously inclined girls between the ages of seven and fifteen years, who by forces of circumstances or associations are in manifest danger of becoming outcasts of society. It is not a place of punishment, to which its inmates are sent as criminals by criminal process -- but a home for the friendless, neglected and vagrant children of the State, where, under the genial influence of kind treatment, and physical and moral training, they may be won back to ways of virtue and respectability, and fitted for positions of honorable self-support, and lives of usefulness."
Mrs. Mary H. Flagg of Hallowell was moved to provide for vagrant and outcast girls, and discussed this with friends in April 1872. She interested Mrs. Almira C. Dummer of Hallowell, and in December of that year, they offered to the Governor $10,000 from Mrs. Flagg, and a building site in Hallowell valued at $2,000 from Mrs. Dummer. In 1872 the corporation accepted the proposals.
The school opened for the reception of pupils January 20, 1875. Thirty-two were received during that year, two were placed outside the institution and the thirty remaining filled the school to its full capacity.
--History - Stevens School, 1875 - 1920, Compiled by Jeanne P. Blaisdell
Some of the activities for the girls focused on developing existing talents and exploring new ones. The Serenaders, the girls singing group was one of many. Listen to their work.
