Blackwell Island, previously known as Hog’s Island, was originally an island owned a Robert Blackwell. New York City purchased the island from Blackwell and turned it into a place to store the sick, the poor, and the incurable criminals of society. Whoever was considered undesirable or showed nonconformist traits was sent to Blackwell Island. There they lived among with the murderers and the insane.
Blackwell Island became Welfare Island in 1921, and it was turned into a place to heal the sick and reeducate the poor. The island was renamed again in 1971 as Roosevelt Island and is now a residential community with a fascinating and somewhat dark history. [1]
Bad Women On The Streets
In New York State, 1851, a certain chief of police decided that he had the “right to arrest and imprison, as vagrants, every woman found walking in the streets who was [assumed] to be lost to virtue.” Once or twice a month he would send his men out to arrest all women on the streets and they would net anywhere from 75 to 100 women in a single night.
One night he had 82 women arrested for being out too late. Several of the women turned out to be married and were not prostitutes. They were allowed to go home. Some of the women were mothers and were left go.
The remaining 28 women were sent away to Blackwell Island to serve time as vagrants, even though it was highly unlikely that all the remaining women were prostitutes. It was simply a matter of letting women know that they had to be inside their homes at a decent hour, unlike their male counterparts who were allowed to roam the streets at all hours. [2]
Shot Her Man
In the late 1800s, Annie Walden got married and lived in a New York City flat with her husband. Her husband’s family disapproved of the married and the couple began to argue incessantly under the strain. One night when they were out on the town, the couple got into another squabble and her husband hit her outside of the Metropolitan Opera House. She, in turn, shot and killed him on the spot.
Walden was rightly found guilty of murder and was given a life sentence at the Blackwell Island penitentiary. Eight years later, her name hit the news again. This time she was dying of cancer and tuberculosis, an infectious disease. The state decided to move her from Blackwell, a place known to have next to no ventilation and a haven for catching deadly diseases, to another facility in Auburn where she could live out her remaining days. [3]
Assault Of The Millionaire
Some people were sent to Blackwell Island for all the wrong reasons while others deserved to be there. Millionaire Frederick S. Pinckus was one of those people who deserved to go to the island, but the sentencing for his crime was a mere slap on the wrist.
In 1912, Pinckus, a linen manufacturer, trapped his 17-year-old stenographer inside his car. As he began his assault, she pulled out her hatpin and gave him a good jab. She escaped from his car, alerted the authorities, and he was taken before the Magistrate.
Pinckus admitted that the young woman did not give him permission to touch her, but as he explained to the judge: “You know how it is, judge, with a man of the world and a pretty little kid like that.”
The judge decided to forgo fining the millionaire because the money would mean nothing to the man. Instead, he sentenced him to Blackwell Island, but only for ten days. [4]
Colonel Vagrant
New York City’s method of dealing with the homeless was to collect them off the streets and send them to the penitentiary on Blackwell Island. They wanted the homeless to be out of sight and out of mind.
That is was happened to Colonel William Wayne Belvin in 1912. Belvin was formerly a millionaire who lost all his money to stocks, fraud, and fake friends. After living such a high life, he was left to wander the streets.
One day he stopped a detective on Broadway and asked the man for the price of a cheap place to stay. He was immediately arrested and sentenced to ten days on Blackwell Island for being a vagrant. [5]
Family Ripped Apart
Sarah Nary, aged 80, and her grandson, aged 12, lived in extreme poverty. The grandson had a job selling newspapers and they relied on his income for basic necessities. A local church and the Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor further aided the woman and her grandson with food donations.
One day, on the sly, the Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor dragged the grandson to court and had him committed to an institution, citing the age of his grandmother as being proof that she was unfit to care for the boy.
The Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor also decided to send the grandmother away to the poorhouse on Blackwell Island. When she refused to go, they cut off her food supply until she agreed to be sent away.
When a reporter asked the Association if this was a common way to deal with the poor, the Association replied that “it is employed by every organized charity in the country.” [6]
Anti-Rockefeller Demonstrator
In 1914, Becky Edelson took part in the anti-Rockefeller demonstrations after the tragic event of the Ludlow Massacre where Rockefeller, Jr. had his militia fire upon striking miners. Women and children were killed in the incident and the American public was angry.
The Rockefeller family pretty much owned the town, Tarrytown, NY, where the demonstrations were held, so the demonstrators were immediately arrested and Becky Edelson was charged as an anarchist. She was sentenced to 30 days on Blackwell Island for disorderly conduct.
Becky announced that she would undergo a hunger strike for the full 30 days of her sentencing, but the Commissioner stated that Becky will eat, whether she wants to or not: “Becky will be trussed up in a blanket so she can’t make a move, even wiggle. Then a rubber tube will be inserted in one of her nostrils and a special liquid preparation will be poured through the tube.” [7]
The Union Menace
Members of the I.W.W. (Industrial Workers of the World) were considered a menace in the early part of the 20th century. They were a union who fought for the rights of workers, something that the Rockefellers and other millionaire businessmen hated.
Whenever members of the I.W.W. gathered or spoke to a crowd, it was guaranteed that the police would show up and arrest the members. That is what happened at a 1914 street gathering. Two men, Harry Plunkett and Jacob Isaacson were arrested in Tarrytown, NY, the home of the Rockefellers, for “making inflammatory speeches and disturbing the peace.” The men were sentenced to two months at the penitentiary on Blackwell Island. [8]
Death To Sinners
A highly judgmental Sunday sermon was published in 1917 detailing the fall of a Mrs. John W. Springer. Mrs. Springer was a married woman who loved the glitz of the Denver society and “she amused herself with harmless flirtations, she drank at hotels and cafes, she neglected her home for the society of a bunch of lizards who lured her into sin.”
The sin? Two men, “ardent admirers,” got in a fight over her. One pulled out a gun and fired it three times. Two bullets went into the other man and one hit and killed an innocent bystander.
Since Mrs. Springer was blamed as the cause for the incident, her husband divorced her and she was sent to Blackwell Island. A few years later she died on the island “unattended, uncomforted, unmourned.”
The sermon ended its tale of the dangers of society for women with: “Surely the way of the sinner is hard and the wages of sin is death!” [9]
Birth Control Rebel
Called a “birth control rebel,” Ethel Byrne was arrested and convicted in 1917 for spreading literature in support of the use of birth control. She was sentenced to Blackwell Island where she immediately began her hunger strike to protest the state laws set up against the use of birth control “that cause the death annually of 8,000 working mothers in New York and a quarter million in the nation.”
After roughly five days without food and water, Byrne collapsed and was transported to the hospital on the island. She was then “rolled in a blanket, a rubber tube inserted into her mouth and a pint of milk, two eggs and a stimulant” were poured into the tube. Neither her sister nor her lawyer were allowed to see her while she was held on the island. [10] [11]
Cured Of Drugs
The early 1900s saw a major crackdown on opiates and cocaine. Those who were found using the drugs or admitted to using them were immediately arrested. Sarah Cowen became addicted to drugs while she was a probationary nurse. She was discovered and sent to Blackwell Island to be “cured” in 1919.
After her release, she disappeared from society only to be found dead of drug and alcohol poisoning inside a hotel in 1921. Her body was taken to the morgue where it remained unclaimed by her family.
Blackwell Island had an ugly stigma attached to it and people were often disowned by their families after being sent there. It was nearly impossible for these same people to get jobs after the taint of a visit to the island. [12]
