On reforming the "fallen" and beyond: Transforming continuity at the Magdalen Society of Philadelphia, 1845-1916

Abstract

During the nineteenth century, America's urban populations exploded and, with immigration, diversified into a multicultural melange. At the same time, production changed the processes we know as industrialization. Societies in the throes of such rapid change often experience sexual ″disorder″ as particularly threatening.Theories linking nature and gender, sexuality, pollution fears, and purification rituals are among the symbolic languages through which others came, but found they did not share the reformers-pm cultural goals and values. They did not define themselves as fallen, as polluted. And the reformers would not or could not understand them. These young women responded in a variety ways-some sought to learn and accept the reformers' culture, some accepted only their food and shelter, others ran away, yet others resisted. The reformers kept working harder in their various ways to seek out young women, teach them skills rituzle new life envisioned for them, and shepherd them through the purification ritual's transformation in the carefully controlled world of the Magdalen Asylum.