Katharine Bement Davis (January 15, 1860 – December 10, 1935) was an American Progressive Era social reformer and criminologist who became the first woman to head a major New York City agency when she was appointed Correction Commissioner on January 1, 1914. Davis was a former school teacher from upstate New York, who later became one of the nation's first female doctorates when she received her Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago in 1901. Davis was also known for her work as an American penologist and a writer who had a long-lasting effect on American penal reform in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Katharine Bement David was designated as one of the three most distinguished women in America by the Panama-Pacific Exposition, alongside Zelia Nuttall and Jane Addams. Davis was also remembered for her pioneering science-based prison reform and groundbreaking research about female sexuality. She was also the first woman to run for a New York statewide office on a major party ticket, on the Progressive party's 1914 slate for State Constitutional Convention seat. For her relief work during the 1908 Messina earthquake, she was honored with the Red Cross Medal presented to her by President Taft, receiving honors also from Pope Pius X and from King Victor Emmanuel.
Biography She was born in Buffalo, New York, on January 15, 1860, to Oscar Bill Davis and Frances Freeman. She was the oldest of five children—three girls and two boys. Katharine's mother Frances was a strong proponent of women's rights and a zealous advocate for women's suffrage. The Davis family lived in Dunkirk, New York, during most of her childhood. Both of her parents were active in community organizations in Dunkirk. Oscar Davis worked for Bradstreet company, and when Katharine was seventeen he relocated to Rochester, New York, to manage a regional office there.
Education and early careers In 1879, Davis graduated from Rochester Free Academy, a public high school. Since her family was unable to afford the tuition for college, she taught at Dunkirk Academy. There she established a women's equality club and led a women's literacy group. After teaching high school chemistry for ten years, Davis saved enough money to continue her schooling full-time. In 1890, she enrolled in Vassar College, a center of progressive education for women. Davis combined her interests in science and social reform by studying food chemistry and nutritional studies. Taking this course of study gave Davis the opportunity for a career in a public health agency after graduation. After graduating from Vassar, Davis continued her studies at Columbia University's Barnard College, a separate women's college within the university, while teaching at Brooklyn Heights Seminary for Girls. She continued studying the chemistry of food. While studying at Barnard, Davis managed a project to develop a model home for New York State's display at the Chicago World Fair. As a result of the success of the home display, she was offered a job running a settlement house in Philadelphia.
Philadelphia's College Settlement House The settlement house movement began in the late 19th century to socialize the poor and uneducated residents that occupied immigrant neighborhoods in a city to American values and customs. In the United States, "college settlements" were run by young women graduates of progressive colleges who as "workers" moved into a neighborhood house in order to Americanize the local residents. The College Settlement on Philadelphia's St. Mary's Street served a district of indigent blacks and Russian immigrants. Davis moved into the house as "head worker". While in Philadelphia, Davis worked with W. E. B. Du Bois, who was then at the University of Pennsylvania conducting groundbreaking research on blacks in urban America. Davis noted in the Settlement's annual report that "the investigation into the condition of the colored people of . . . the seventh ward which contains about 10,000 Negroes, nearly one fourth the entire number in the city" would be carried out "by means of house-to-house canvass."
Chicago Davis first began her journey to Chicago in 1893 when she directed a diet and living standard exhibit in the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. In 1897, Davis quit her job at the Philadelphia College Settlement House and moved to Chicago, Illinois. Here she attended the University of Chicago, where she was the first female Fellow in Political Science-Economics to earn a Ph.D. Davis studied political economy under Thorstein Veblen and minored in sociology under George E. Vincent. She also received a traveling fellowship, in which she went to Berlin and Vienna. Davis earned her Ph.D. in economics in 1901 and decided to take the New York civil service exam. Shen then took a job at Bedford Hills Reformatory.
Corrections career
Bedford Hills Reformatory The New York State Reformatory for Women at Bedford Hills, New York, opened in May 1901 with Davis as the superintendent. Educating and giving more opportunities to women was her primary goal as she believed that a lack of opportunity drove women to criminal and immoral activities. Davis was in favor of arresting suspected prostitutes and had little regard for whether an innocent women would be wrongfully accused. Besides the administration building, the campus included "a reception hall, four cottages, a laundry building, a powerhouse, a gate house, and a stable". The reception hall had two wings, one wing modeled after a traditional prison with three tiers of 24 cells each, and the other wing contained rooms accommodating 42 inmates. The women at Bedford ranged in ages of sixteen to thirty; they had been arrested for various reasons such as prostitution or public intoxication. When Davis began working at Bedford, approximately one quarter of the women were non-native, but by the end of her career African-American women made up one fifth of the population. In the beginning Davis fashioned the reformatory to be more likely a boarding school than a prison, as she wanted to help women start a new life. However, when she saw more offenders, she began to associate immorality with criminality and mental capacity; this lead her to a eugenicist line of thinking.
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