Origins and Discovery

Abstract

On july 3, 1899, in the old County Building in downtown Chicago, Illinois, Judge Richard Tuthill presided over a court hearing involving Henry Campbell, an eleven-year-old boy who had been arrested for larceny. But this was no regular day and no regular court hearing. On this day, Henry Campbell became the first defendant to be tried in the nation’s first juvenile court. Upon pleas from Campbell’s parents in the “juvenile court room,” Judge Tuthill decided against sending Henry to the state reformatory—one of the few options available to judges at the time. Tuthill sent him instead to his grandmother’s