Every kind of bad name was pasted on them: delinquents, hussies, misfits, fallen, flirts, incorrigbles.
For much of the 20th century institutions run by various religious orders such as the Congregation of the Sisters of Charity of the Good Shepherd housed and disciplined young women who had – possibly – transgressed society’s rules.
In New York, the Sisters of the Good Shepherd operated the Villa Loretto in Peekskill from 1928-1975. The enormous old school on a hill is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. But it was only after Peter McMullan’s 2002 film “The Magdalen Laundries” and an Irish national report was issued in 2014 that many members of the public began talking about the justice wreaked on the girls sent there. In Ireland, these were not just schools for “delinquents,” the girls worked, sometimes for life, scrubbing linens for commercial laundries without pay as “a penitence.”
In October at the Soho Playhouse on Vandam Street in Manhattan, Magdalen: The Play visited straight from acclaim at the Edinburgh Fringe Theatre Festival. Playwright and actor Erin Layton starred in a moving solo performance that was as much about face, gesture, movement and sound, as about the script. Calling it a documentary play, Layton says “My goal, as a woman is to glorify the beauty and integrity of women and girls who were otherwise known to an entire modern European society as fallen, feeble-minded, whores, misfits, flirts, sluts.” Many Irish girls/women are still alive, and are fighting to gain some recognition for their years of unpaid labor and their often radically misguided sentencing to these state-sanctioned workhouses. With directing by Julie Kline, the actor has forged documentary materials into a powerful social commentary on attitudes towards female sexuality and gender roles.
Layton moves about in an abstracted stage set of sheets, miming the constant scrubbing as she portrays various characters drawn from her documentary research. The sounds of water punctuate the drama, a score of drips that resounded alternately triste and accusatory. Layton moves fluently from strict administrator Sister Superior to cringing new inmate.Some girls arrived bewildered and longed only to emulate the good sisters — until told that they would never qualify as a nun after their “sins.”
The knowledge of being seen as polluted and contaminated is as palpable as the dirt on the sheets in Layton’s performance. Others manifest the high spirits and resilience of teens who know the world is wrong and they are right, a confidence that often waned over the years of indeterminate “sentences” to the Magdalene laundries. Girls as young as nine were admitted, and there was a case in the official report of a woman who got out at 95. Scandals over the burials on the grounds were part of what provoked the Irish governmental investigation. In one scene, neighborhood boys taunt the girls and speculate about the spooky hidden lives behind the walls.
Embodying these stories, male, female, young, old, perpetrator and victim, Layton renders her body angular or soft, mutating marvelously from little girl to aging drudge. Her face is a malleable instrument, at times harsh, at other moments dancing with adolescent defiance.
The performance at SoHo Playhouse won a standing ovation as the lights dimmed. The issues raised by the laundries in Ireland and the homes for delinquent girls in the United States remain: why have we cracked down so fiercely on adolescent girls, and what do we imagine these days for a better vision of gender justice? Joni MItchell sang about the Magdalen Laundries in 1972, but clearly that wasn’t the end of it.
Photos: Above, Erin Layton plays a girl sentenced to scrub; middle, Villa Loretto housed girls in trouble in Peekskill from 1928-1975; and below, crushed beneath the eternally dirty sheets.
Kathleen I think this is a really interesting area of research – a couple of years ago I was inspired to begin a paper entitled The Madeline Inheritance, focusing on the sisters and inmates of the laundry’s of Scotland, namely Edinburgh and Glasgow. It is quite incredible how these institutions were used as prisons, orphanages, workhouses, and prostitutional reform centres but more interestingly how they were run by women for women.
I hope to get a chance to see the play …
PS I interned for you a few years ago at NYHS!
I do not know how anyone who is knowledgeable could compare Villa Loretto and /or Mt St Florence run by the Sisters of the Good Shepherd in Peekskill, NY to the Magdalen Laundries of Ireland.
The girls at the Villa and the Mount were never mistreated! No comparison. Get it straight!
Linda Aviles – I’m interested in learning more about the conditions at Mt. St. Florence. I have a great grand Aunt who was Mother Superior there, as well as in a school in Troy, NY, and 90th St. in Manhattan. I recently learned that there may have been a commercial laundry at the Troy school and thought “uh-oh”. I’ve always assumed her mission was education not punishment.
I was one of the girls at Mt.St. Florence from 1969 to 1971. Never were we mistreated there. Nor were we ever forced to work in a laundry or anywhere else. We had normal chores to do like making our beds, cleaning our rooms, cleaning the dinner table, and washing dishes.
The Sisters treated us very well. They treated us with dignity and respect. They treated us with love. They took us to camp in Pennsylvania in the summer. Some of the Sisters played handball and roller skated with us. One nun ran with me. At camp, Sister Helene taught me how to canoe. It became a life long activity for me. She and I often discussed literature. She and other Sisters watched TV and movies with us. I have nothing but good things to say about the Mount and the Sisters.
Yes this is the truth. I know I live there from 1969-1975. I new all of the sisters.
Was at the mount from 1964 until 1967 . Thinking back on that time it was the best. I was in the St. Joseph group. The steps to the third floor killer .
agreed….I was there in the early 70’s and felt like a good home to me…..but I do understand that times and places and circumstances can be widely variable….import to present varied asspects of this issue
Linda Aviles. You’re absolutely correct. I was at Mt. St. Florence for a year and 3 months, 1959-60. It was a great experience. The nuns were wonderful, and we were treated very well. There was very little “work” required of the girls. After school we did basic housekeeping chores, some girls worked in the kitchen, some cleaned the dorms and school rooms. Everybody had something to do for 2 hours. I worked, for a time, in the “machine room”. We sewed little kids pajamas, which I understood were given to orphanages. We learned to use all kinds of sewing machines and the basics of sewing. A good thing in my view. For awhile I worked in the convent library. Never did I feel that I was being taken advantage of. Every job I did was a learning experience. We also had many fun events; camp in the summer, skating and sledding in the winter, parties at the “Long House”!
There is nothing bad that I could ever say about Mt. St. Florence, and nothing bad I would believe from someone else’s mouth.
My name is Elva Garcia I was one of those girls and I was never mistreated. I was there for 1 & 1/2 year
I am from Syracuse NY & was sent to VL by family Court due to truancy. I lived there for almost 2yrs. I am grateful to have been there. When I came back home I should have been in 9th grade but was advanced into 12th & graduated almost 3yrs early. The sisters & everyone there were wonderful. Too bad they closed these places down!
I spent 2 years at Villa Loretto School with The Sisters of the Good Shepherd in the mid sixties. I was sent there by the family court because I kept running away from home due to a bad home situation. I am absolutely 100% positive that if I had not been sent there my life would have not turned out well at all. The Sisters were wonderful. I was never asked to do any “work” other than clean my own space and do chores like anyone would do at home. I had counseling, a great academic experience and have many fond memories of the sisters and the friends I made there. Someone should write a book about that!
I was at the Mount from 1964 to 1968. I went there for many different reasons. I will say that if I had not been sent there by the courts I do not know what would have befallen me. It was one of the greatest blessings God bestowed on me. I was treated with love, compassion, concern. They took care of all my corporal needs, I was feed, clothed, educated and guided when I needed it and I felt the hand of God in all of it, even to this day. The contemplative sister ran there personal laundry service just for the nuns clothing. We girls had nothing to do with it. We girls took care of our areas and our own needs no outside work of any kind. It was run like a boarding school but with real love for the girls.
I was at Villa Loretto from 1966-1968 in St. Michaels Group with Mother Ellen, and the rest of the girls. It was a nice place to live there.Sure we had a few chores to do and we went to school but nothing bad happened. We took a lot of different trips had fun. I’m from Syracuse,NY met a lot of girls from NY city l could tell you a lot of stories about that place which were a lot of fun.
Hi my name is Sharon. I was at Villa for awhile. I am grateful family Court sent me there. Made a better person of me! I live in Syracuse too
I was in St. Michael’s from 1969 to 1971. Mother Helene was our group mother. She was absolutely wonderful! I loved her so much that I named my only daughter after her.
Wow! I am stunned by some of the negative comments. I entered the novitiate of the Good Shepherd in 1963 and spent 14 months there. While as postulants and novices, we did not have direct contact with the girls sent there, we were always encouraged to smile and say hello when passing by. The sisters had their own chores to do – cleaning, cooking, laundry, ironing, etc. The girls were not mistreated.
I was at Villa Loretto August- October 1969 by family court for not going to school. Myself and another girl from there escaped from there early in the morning by climbing out a window and down the side of the building and we climbed over the barb wire fence . We hitch a ride to the city & stayed at a friend of hers for the night. She got me a ticket to fly back to Buffalo the next day. I hid out till I turned 16 & went back home. I was never mistreated there. We had chores went to school, had field trips. I was in the St. Joseph group. Don’t remember the nun’s names. But I have live a good live married young have 2 adult children. My husband died 18 years ago, we were married 31 years. I bacame a R.N. And worked nursing 30 years. At 50 went back to school & became a massage therapist & Reflexologist & own my own business. For some reason these memories came up tonight & I decided to research the place.
My sister was sent to Villa Loretta in Peekskill, NY in 1960/1961 by court order due to the alcoholism of both of our parents. Living conditions at home were horrific. Thank God for the sisters, if not for them, the outcome would have been bleak. She was safe and happy there and returned home to live with me. Many thanks for saving her. God Bless.