Rhoda Coffin

Rhoda Coffin, (1826–1909), was a Quaker social reformer, author, temperance crusader, and women's rights advocate who is best known for her efforts in prison reform. She held an integral role in establishing the Indiana Reformatory Institution for Women and Girls in 1869. It became the first female-controlled women's prison in the United States. She also served as president of the reformatory's board of managers. Coffin’s efforts on behalf of prison reform made her a leading figure in the national prison reform movement, and she traveled widely, wrote articles, and delivered speeches on the topic. She was also a champion of other causes that assisted women and children.

Coffin's charitable work began in the 1850s, when she and her husband, Charles Coffin, began visiting homes and distributing bibles in Richmond, Indiana, where they resided. In partnership with her husband, she established the Marion Street Sabbath School in 1864, and with other local women, the Home Mission Association in 1866. Under her leadership as president, the mission association established a Home for Friendless Women in Richmond in 1868. Following her success as a women's prison reformer in the 1870s, Coffin joined the temperance crusade. With other women she established a local chapter of the Women's Christian Temperance Union in 1874. Coffin’s interest in social reform also led to her assistance in securing the appointment of the first female physician for the Indiana Hospital for the Insane in 1880. A bank scandal involving Coffin's husband and sons forced a move to Chicago, Illinois, in 1884. For the remaining twenty-five years of her life, Coffin resided in Chicago, where she continued to write and speak on prison reform and visited area prisons and insane asylums with her husband.

Rhoda M. Johnson, the fourth child of Judith and John Johnson, was born on February 1, 1826, near Paintersville in Greene County, Ohio. She grew up in a strict, Orthodox Quaker farm family. In 1845 her parents agreed that she could enroll at the Whitewater Monthly Meeting School in Richmond, the seat of government for Wayne County, Indiana, but she returned home in 1846 to help the family after her father became ill.

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