Van Waters, Miriam (1887–1974)

Biographical Details

Van Waters's reformist ideas originated in the social gospel message of her father, George Browne Van Waters, a progressive Episcopalian clergyman. Her commitment to child saving had strong roots in her experiences as the eldest of five siblings. A graduate of St. Helen's Hall in Portland, Oregon, Van Waters earned BA (1908) and MA (1910) degrees in psychology at the University of Oregon. While she was studying at Clark University, where she completed a doctorate in anthropology in 1913, her visits to Judge Harvey Baker's juvenile court in Boston influenced her rejection of prevailing theories of inherited defect in favor of social and familial explanations of criminality. Van Waters first worked with troubled youth at the Boston Children's Aid Society and then became superintendent of the Frazer Detention Home in Portland.

Juvenile Justice

Diagnosed with tuberculosis in 1915, Van Waters gave up her dreams of reforming juvenile justice, but after a long period of recovery in Oregon and Southern California, she revived her career in 1917, becoming superintendent of the Los Angeles County Juvenile Hall. In 1920 she became a “referee,” or informal judge, at the L.A. Juvenile Court, where she served until 1930. She also founded El Retiro, an experimental school for troubled girls that combined maternal concern and firm authority to treat the “so-called delinquent.” At Juvenile Hall and El Retiro, Van Waters rejected solitary confinement, emphasized medical and social services, and instituted clubs, classes, and self-government. Drawing on the settlement house model, she also helped found a residence for young working women graduates of El Retiro. Her two popular books about delinquent youth (Youth in Conflict, [Page 994]1925, and Parents on Probation, 1928) established her national reputation. In 1929, Van Waters was elected president of the National Conference of Social Workers.

Repeatedly embroiled in local politics and accused of exceeding her authority, Van Waters counted on the influence of middleclass women's clubs and her wealthy patrons, Chicago philanthropist Ethel Sturges Dummer and New Jersey reformer Geraldine Livingston Thompson. A network of female professional colleagues with whom she lived also helped her raise the neglected child she had met in 1929, when the girl was seven years old and a ward of the juvenile court; she renamed the child Sarah Ann Van Waters and later adopted her. In the face of renewed opposition, Van Waters left Los Angeles in 1931 to investigate juvenile justice for the Harvard Crime Survey and the National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement. In her national evaluation of girls' reformatories, she criticized inadequate and punitive institutions and praised those that were education based.

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