Reform Takes a Village
Written by Tyler Stump in the Picturing PA category and the Summer 2020 issue Topics in this article: Laurelton Village, Lewisburg, Mary Moore Wolfe, Union County, women's suffrage movement
A sewing class at Laurelton Village, captured on a lantern slide.
Pennsylvania State Archives, RG-23
Lewisburg native Mary Moore Wolfe (1874–1962) was one of Union County’s most prominent reformers of the Progressive Era. After graduating from Bucknell University in 1896, she quickly made a name for herself as an accomplished physician and advocate for women’s rights. In 1914 Wolfe joined with other suffragists to establish the Woman Suffrage Party of Union County and served as its charismatic first president.
Wolfe was also instrumental in creating the Pennsylvania Village for Feeble-Minded Women (known as “Laurelton Village”), established in Laurelton, Union County, as a state-run home for women with intellectual disabilities. Wolfe was named the institution’s first superintendent and held the position from 1917 until 1940. Unsurprisingly, she devoted as much energy to Laurelton Village as she did to the suffrage movement.
When the institution was established, many officials assumed it would be operated like most other mental institutions at that time. Inspired by eugenic principles and assumptions that a person’s intellectual disabilities were hereditary, most psychologists believed it was best to segregate people with disabilities from society and prevent them from having children. Though Wolfe subscribed to some of these practices, she also saw Laurelton Village as a place to educate and help these women have successful lives.
Mary Moore Wolfe, first superintendent of Laurelton Village.
Pennsylvania State Archives, RG-23
Wolfe rejected the established medical traditions of the early 20th century that argued “mental deficiencies” caused people to commit crimes and warranted locking them up forever. She believed “the problem of mental deficiency is not primarily a medical problem” but instead was “an educational, and to a lesser degree, a sociological problem.” Determined to make Laurelton Village a place of rehabilitation and not permanent segregation, Wolfe developed academic, vocational and moral training programs for the women living there.
Many of the women at Laurelton Village had little schooling and Wolfe’s education programs gave them the skills needed to return to society and live independently. Laurelton women were taught to read and write. They attended sewing classes and learned other skills such as embroidery and millinery. In reference to the residents, one Laurelton Village psychologist wrote in 1925, “She must be able to write a legible hand in order to sign payrolls . . . she must have a wide enough acquaintance with arithmetic in order to safeguard her wages and to prevent her from being imposed upon when she makes her purchases.” Women living at Laurelton Village were usually paroled after they were no longer able to have children and staff considered them self-sufficient.
The success of Laurelton Village’s training and parole programs were frequently praised by officials and before long other institutions in Pennsylvania adopted them. Wolfe was also elected president of the American Association on Mental Deficiency in the 1930s, where her progressive views on intellectual disability supported reform on a national level.
Materials pertaining to Dr. Mary Wolfe and Laurelton Village can be found in the Pennsylvania State Archives in Record Group 23: Records of the Department of Human Services.
Tyler Stump is an archivist at the Pennsylvania State Archives.
