Keys to History

Growing concern that male and female prisoners had different needs led to the 1874 establishment of the first prison for women in Canada. The Andrew Mercer Reformatory in Toronto promised to create a homelike atmosphere for its female inmates and to teach them the skills necessary to lead a decent life once their sentence expired. The training offered was intended to instill feminine Victorian virtues such as obedience and servility.

But work continued to be a major part of a prison sentence. According to the Mercer superintendent, "of all wretched women the idle are the most wretched. We try to impress upon them the importance of labour, and we look upon this as one of the great means of their reformation." Ironically, for women of means, freedom from work was a sign of success, but for poor and working women, inactivity was a mark of dissolution.