Article 7: Coercion, If Coercion Be Necessary: The Educational Function of the New York House of Refuge, 1824-1874

The New York House of Refuge, the first juvenile reformatory in the United States, opened in New York City in 1824. The Refuge served as an alternative place of incarceration for delinquent youth to protect them from contact with the adult populations found in the penitentiaries. But it also served a distinctively educational role that has been overlooked by historians. The problems of poverty and crime that plagued New York City in the nineteenth century led to an increasing amount of state intervention in people’s personal lives, particularly the poor and the foreignborn. The establishment of the New York House of Refuge was part of a larger education reform movement in the city that sought solutions to poverty and crime through increasingly coercive measures. As part of the education reform movement, the New York House of Refuge helped pave the way legislatively and procedurally for the enactment of compulsory attendance legislation in New York State, one of the first states to pass such measures in 1874. The New York House of Refuge has been studied primarily by historians of juvenile justice reform; its educational function has been recognized less frequently (Pickett 1969; Pisciotta 1985; Rothman 1971; Sobie 1987). Most importantly, the role played by the House of Refuge in the formation of New York City’s public school system has been overlooked.