 An Unloved Child in N.Y. Slum Set Reforms in Motion
A century ago, there was a society to prevent cruelty to animals. Children weren't so lucky. In December 1873, while making rounds in a New York city tenement, nurse Etta Wheeler heard from neighbors of a child in the building who was being beaten daily by her foster parents. She talked her way into the apartment and caught a glimpse of a 9-year old girl named Mary Ellen.
'From a pan set upon a low stool she stood washing dishes, struggling with a frying pan about as heavy as herself.' The child appeared barefoot, ill-clothed and half-starved. 'Across the table lay a brutal whip of twisted leather strands, and the child's meager arms and legs bore many marks of its use. But the saddest part of her story was written on her face in its look of suppression and misery,,,,,,,,,,,,,, .............. The Look of a Child Unloved.
During the next few months, Mrs Wheeler reported Mary Ellen's plight to police and charities, who did nothing. In desperation, she turned to Henry Bergh, President of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
Mr. Bergh got a judge's permission to intervene on 'humanitarian grounds. ' I saw a child brought in, carried in a horse blanket, at the sight of which caused grown men to weep aloud,' wrote Jacob Ruis, a newspaper writer who was in the courtroom that day. Mary Ellen's body was bruised on the left side where her foster mother had cut her with scissors the day before.
Using the laws that banned cruelty to animals, the judge ordered Mary Ellen taken away from her foster mother--THIS WAS THE FIRST RECORDERED CASE OF A COURT INTERVENING TO PROTECT A CHILD FROM ABUSE.
Nine years after the creation of the American Society , New York City established the nation's first Child Protective Agency!
That was the beginning of seeing child abuse as a civil issue as well as a criminal issue,'says Paul Smith, director of research at the Children's Defense Fund in Washington. 'You can think of what happened in child abuse as the very first victim's rights movement.'
Many more reforms followed
Creation of Juvinile Courts+ Passage of Child Labor Laws + Battered Child Syndrome Identification which led to requirements in 50 states that doctors report abuse cases to police.
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While many child abuse cases still end badly, the case of Mary Ellen at least gave children a better chance of getting rescued from miserable circumstances.
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Mary Ellen's story did in fact have a happy ending. Within a year of her rescue' Mary Ellen was sent to live with Mrs. Wheeler's family in upstate N.Y.Nourished and loved, she was 'fast becoming a normal child.' Mrs. Wheeler wrote. Whe 24 she was married to a worthy man and has proved to be a good homemaker and devoted wife and mother.
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'IF THE MEMORY OF HER EARLIEST YEARS WAS SAD- THERE IS THE COMFORT THAT THE CRY OF HER WRONGS AWOKE THE WORLD TO THE NEED OF ORGANIZED RELIEF FOR NEGLECTED AND ABUSED CHILDREN
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A story by Tracy Thompson and Jane O Hansen
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