Mrs. Stevens, who performed this work for several years, became
the first probation officer of the Juvenile Court when it was
established in Cook County in 1899. She was the sole probation
officer at first, but at the time of her death, which occurred at
Hull-House in 1900, she was the senior officer of a corps of six.
Her entire experience had fitted her to deal wisely with wayward
children. She had gone into a New England cotton mill at the age
of thirteen, where she had promptly lost the index finger of her
right hand, through "carelessness" she was told, and no one then
seemed to understand that freedom from care was the prerogative
of childhood. Later she became a typesetter and was one of the
first women in America to become a member of the typographical
union, retaining her "card" through all the later years of
editorial work. As the Juvenile Court developed, the committee
of public-spirited citizens who first supplied only Mrs. Stevens'
salary later maintained a corps of twenty-two such officers;
several of these were Hull-House residents who brought to the
house for many years a sad little procession of children
struggling against all sorts of handicaps. When legislation was
secured which placed the probation officers upon the payroll of
the county, it was a challenge to the efficiency of the civil
service method of appointment to obtain by examination men and
women fitted for this delicate human task.
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