The Girl Problem

"An absorbing analysis of delinquency among working-class adolescents. . . . This clearly written and well-researched study includes a useful bibliographical essay."—Library Journal "The 'Girl Problem' is based in large part on the records of one hundred young women incarcerated between 1900 and 1930 in two institutions, the New York State Reformatory for Women at Bedford Hills . . . and the Western House of Refuge for Women at Albion, in upstate New York. The records are rich with detail, including psychological assessments, correspondence from families and between inmates and others, and parole applications, that Alexander has used to good effect. Nearly all of those incarcerated were poor and came from immigrant or African-American homes."—Journal of Social History "Alexander's study . . . adds an important set of characters and locales to the growing history of women's lives during the intense immigration, urbanization, and modernization of the early twentieth century. . . . This book is a powerful argument on several levels for why poverty seems to breed criminality in this country."—Women's Review of Books