Toward the end of 1943, the federal government, in partnership with the City of Seattle, opened a Rapid Treatment Center for young women infected with venereal disease. The facility was located at the Crittenton Home for unwed mothers in Rainier Beach, leased to the city for the duration of World War II. The project was part of a wider effort to keep syphilis and gonorrhea from sapping the strength of the nation’s fighting forces. About the same time, the state of Washington set up a second RTC at the existing girls reformatory in Grand Mound. Ultimately, the two entities merged. Hundreds of women and girls in Washington state were involuntarily quarantined and treated during the war emergency with little regard for civil liberties, while service men faced little in the way of consequences.
Public health reports from the agencies concerned offer a dizzying array of statistics and theories about “the problem.” And while officials often spoke and wrote about the sad backgrounds of the women involved, little can be found from the point of view of the women themselves. In this essay, we’ll listen to a few voices that come through the din.
The Crittenton Home
In 1899 a group
of women in the Seattle area, inspired by the message of
millionaire-philanthropist Charles Crittenton, formed a “rescue circle” to help
“fallen women” in their community. The establishment quickly evolved from one
meant to rescue prostitutes to a sanctuary for pregnant teens and unwed
mothers. When the original wooden home in Rainier Beach proved inadequate, the
ladies replaced it with a sturdy brick structure at the same location. The Crittenton
Home weathered changing economic times and social norms for nearly three
quarters of a century, with one significant interruption during World War II.
Uncle Sam
Needs You
In 1943,
the Crittenton Home was transformed, temporarily, into a Rapid Treatment Center
(RTC) for women with venereal disease (STDs). Many of the women targeted were
the “Victory Girls” who populated Seattle’s downtown and waterfront, as well as
other ports of embarkation, during the war years. Not exactly prostitutes,
these good time girls were willing to give their all for the war effort.
Unfortunately, the resulting outbreaks of syphilis and gonorrhea threatened to
sap the fighting power of the armed forces, so punitive measures were taken. In
many places, women and teens were arrested and jailed if suspected of being
infected; if contagion was proved, they could be quarantined, even when no laws
had been broken. In an obvious double-standard, infected enlisted men were
treated on base and were not subject to arrest. Nor was the very young age of
some of the girls considered a cause for charges against the men involved.
So serious
was the perceived threat to public health that the federal government established
an agency, headed up by one Eliot Ness, with funding from the 1941 Lanham Act,
to combat the problem.[i]
The Seattle treatment center, run jointly by the city and the feds, was one of dozens
nationwide under the aegis of the Division of Social Protection of the Federal
Works Agency. Many were set up at former Civilian Conversation Corps camps in
rural areas. The Crittenton Home, already fitted up for the care of girls and
young women and far removed from temptation, seemed a perfect location for what
were, in most cases, first offenders. (The word “amateurs” is often used in
government reports.) The trustees of the home were persuaded to lease the
building and grounds to the city for the duration.
In some
ways, the program for the residents was quite similar to that of the Crittenton
girls – school studies, chores, occupational training (typing, sewing), and fun
and games interspersed with medical exams and treatments. A type of
self-government prevailed, including elected officers. However, unlike their
predecessors, the inmates of the euphemistically-titled Lake View Manor School
for Girls were all court-mandated. Further, they were not (necessarily)
pregnant. The grounds were patrolled by guards. When one “faithful and
respected guard” passed away, the inmates raised funds for a floral arrangement.
Situated
as it was within an urban area, the home found itself something of a curiosity.
Visitors included society women such as Mrs. Kenneth B. Colman (Edith,
1905-1970) and attorney Lady Willie Forbus (her name, not a title, 1892-1993),
Seattle Mayor William Devin (1898-1982), and Father (later Bishop) Thomas Gill
(1908-73), all in addition to a steady stream of public health and military
officials. The residents were often called upon to entertain visiting
dignitaries with skits and songs.
Lake View
Manor did aspire to something more than medical cures; the authorities hoped
fervently for moral rehabilitation and “individualized redirection,” as well.[ii]
A memo to Ness written by his local representative invites him to come and see
“what can be done with promiscuous girls.” The writer, Edwin James Cooley, adds that
the inmates are “worthwhile human material.” [iii]
Cooley
enclosed copies of the Tattler, a typewritten newsletter written by
the residents, as evidence of their creative spirit. True to its name, the Tattler offered
up gossipy, often catty, tidbits about both residents and staff, using full
names. For example,
“Where on
earth did Alice Flowers get those bedroom slippers? For a while we thought
someone had dyed their French poodles red and turned them loose in the house.”[iv]
Cultural affairs
Treatments
at the time consisted of sulfonamides for those
with gonorrhea and a combination of drip and injection therapy with drugs
containing arsenic for those infected with syphilis. “Rapid treatment”
typically meant six to ten weeks of confinement, as opposed to a year or more
of outpatient treatment. The use of penicillin, which could effect a cure in a
far shorter period of time, was just around the corner. In fact, a short item
in the Tattler refers to the experimental use of penicillin:
“To our
extreme gratification, on March 8 [1944], we received our first quota of
Penicillin, released to the U.S. Public Health Service by the War Production
Board. Until this time, it has except in rare cases been used exclusively for
the armed forces. Sulfa resistant patients were immediately started on
Penicillin treatment and results have been definitely successful.”[v]
Sketch of Medical Director Harb by Marilyn Rogers, in Tattler.
The war on
VD included weapons familiar to other epidemics, including AIDS in the 1980s
and COVID-19 in the 2020s: swab tests, isolation, contact tracing, and medical
monitoring. For the Lake View Manor women, medical follow-up meant periodic tests
to assess whether disease was still present. Three negative gonorrheal cultures
were required before a woman was eligible for release. Tattler snippets refer
frequently to the intimately-obtained cultures in humorous terms:
“Wonder
why some of the girls are having such a hard time sitting down recently? Essie,
you should be built more like Doreen.”
“Sweet
consolation, girls. Mrs. Knippel insists the ‘pointed’ part of treatment hurts
her worse than it does us.”
And….in
words many of us may relate to:
“The way
Irene Francis’s culture came back, we would like an explanation in language we
all can understand. How about that, Dr. Harb?”
The use of
the Crittenton Home for a treatment center by the city lasted from late fall
1943 until sometime in 1946, a little more than two years. Estimates of numbers
served at any given time range from 43 to 100 women. The annual budget was
$100,000. Early on, planners had promised that inmates would receive assistance
with placement in jobs once they left. Unfortunately, no quantifiable information
is available to determine actual outcomes.
The Washington Infirmary
The push
for rapid treatment of venereal disease during wartime was a nationwide effort;
across the country at least 59 RTCs were established. In the Puget Sound area
another RTC was set up at roughly the same time as that at the Crittenton Home.
The second Washington facility was located in a cottage at the state’s Training
School for Girls, a reformatory at Grand Mound near Centralia. Priority
placement was given to women from the Tacoma area and, then, to others outside
Seattle. Preliminary planning documents indicate that girls were to be
quarantined for not less than four weeks nor more than eight, with the goal of
complete cure. Inmates were to be segregated by race (black and white) and by
their sexual history (amateur vs. professional).[vi]
Given the tight quarters that must have existed in the dormitory-style cottage,
it is doubtful that either of those dictates were carried out. Planning
documents note that “patients should be allowed to have choice in making plans
for rehabilitation.” That last word implies that the inmates were not simply
diseased patients to be cured, they were moral misfits who needed to be
reintegrated into society.[vii]
Six months
into operations, that Grand Mound facility reported curing 94 of 150 women
treated at what was then called the Washington Infirmary. While the treatment
center at the Crittenton Home was run by the Seattle Department of Health,
Washington Infirmary was a state operation. Both, of course, relied heavily on
federal funds to operate.
Early in
1945, despite the objection of medical personnel, Seattle officials moved to
shut down operations at the Crittenton Home citing vacant beds due to rapid
turnover resulting from the new penicillin regimen. At this point, the state
stepped in with a new plan: move the women and girls remaining at Grand Mound
to the Crittenton Home, merging the two entities. The transfer happened in
March 1945.
From here
the timeline becomes a bit hazy. It is likely that rapid treatment under state
auspices continued at the Seattle location for another year. Probably early in
1946, the Washington Infirmary moved to a structure at the little-used Paine Field
airbase near Everett. Two years later, it moved again, this time to the campus
of Firland Sanitorium, a tuberculosis hospital in what is now the city of
Shoreline. On June 10, 1949, with the war emergency far in the rearview mirror,
the 60-bed wing of Firland devoted to VD treatment closed permanently.
Meanwhile,
because the Crittenton board had only leased the property to the city, the
trustees were able to re-open the home to unwed mothers by August of 1946.
Behind the Numbers
Reports of
the Seattle Department of Health are full of statistics about the VD problem,
including age and race of the (female) offenders, the “place of meeting”
(tavern, hotel, dance hall, street, etc., the location of “actual exposure”
(hotel, home, street, taxi, brothel, etc.); types of treatment, cure rates. The
occupation and marital status of the women arrested is noted. In the reports
from 1944, occupation categories include “prostitute,” “waitress,” and “other.”
In some reports, women are categorized as “amateurs” or “professionals.” One
striking statistic that emerges from the records is the number of uninfected
women who are arrested. In the first trimester of 1944, infected women make up
only 17% of the women arrested and examined – indicating a huge number of unnecessary
invasive procedures.
Missing
from the reports is any sense of the humanity of the women. A much different
picture emerges from the pages of the Tattler, the home-made newsletter
printed semi-regularly by the inmates of Lake View Manor. In addition, reports
from officials made in the course of trying to track down runaways and girls
who had left the Washington Infirmary owing money provide glimpses of what life
held for them.
In May
1944, the Tacoma Department of Health tracked down a young woman who had left
the Washington Infirmary in order to collect $7.19 owed to the facility
presumably for small items such as stationery and postage. Lois K. was found
working at the Puyallup Laundry and living with her mother; she promised to
remit the funds after her next pay day. Another young woman, Ruth T., was
located working at the Tacoma Elks Club.[viii]
One
Garnetta F. was the subject of much concern by the Pierce County Welfare
Department. It seems she had bounced in and out of the Grand Mound facility,
her abusive mother’s home, and the county jail. As of December 1944, she was
17, pregnant and without any clear plans, although she claimed to have a fiancé
who was not the father of her child. She readily admitted to many sexual
encounters of which she was not ashamed. According to the report of the county
placement officer,
“Garnetta
has no particular plan for the future and said she had not allowed herself to
think ahead. She did not want to go to the White Shield Home [a Tacoma
maternity hospital for unwed mothers] and hoped that she could marry her
boyfriend, a sailor from the U.S.S Commencement Bay, and that they could work
out some plan.” [ix]
For her
sins, Garnetta earned a place in the sheriff’s jail records alongside men held
for burglary, drunkenness, car theft, and disorderly conduct. Her arrest record
simply states: “Held for Board of Health.”[x]
Despite
the many strikes against her, Garnetta was a survivor. Public records reveal
that she married another man and had a daughter in 1946. She died at the age of
62 in Skagit County. No information is available on the outcome of her earlier
pregnancy. [xi]
From the
pages of the Tattler, we learn more about the young women of Lake
View Manor, their hopes and dreams, their thoughts on their confinement, and,
in some cases, their lives after quarantine. Although the stays were relatively
short, it seems that bonds were formed and friends kept in touch. In the column
“Let’s Follow Our Alumni,” we learn that Adela G. is “dishing out ice cream and
smiles at Bartell’s Drug Store,” Connie M. is working at the Port of
Embarkation, Eleanora S. and Sally S. are “beating out that ‘hup-one-two-three”
at the Wave [sic] Station, Hunter’s College, New York, and that others are
working at Sick’s Brewery, Boeing Aircraft, and the Seattle-Tacoma Shipyards.
Katherine S. reports that she is married and living in Toppenish.[xii]
A news
clipping from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, contained within the files of the
National Archives, shows Frankie Gribbin, a former resident of the treatment
center, in uniform as a recruiting petty officer for the Waves.[xiii]
As noted
above, the pages of the Tattler are filled with many humorous anecdotes
revealing an effort to cope with confinement and obligatory treatments with
humor. The institution is regularly referred to as a school and the inmates as
students. Jokes, poems, sketches, and news from “The Grapevine” give a fairly
rosy picture of life behind the walls, albeit with some hints of deeper
concerns. An anonymous poem is titled “Contemplation of Suicide:”
I wonder if, to the place I’m going
All my sins will follow me –
And point their ugly fingers
And say, “you’ve sinned, you see, you see.”
Or if, when this life is over
I can draw a carefree breath,
And find a friendly solace –
When I leave this earth in death.
As for
hopes and dreams, it seems they continued to revolve around men in uniform.
Conclusion
The war emergency of the 1940s caused upheaval
in many lives. The women and girls who found themselves quarantined during this
time might have much to say about civil liberties. Many more suffered arrest
and intrusive testing for little more than being in the wrong place at the
wrong time. Nonetheless, looking beyond the statistics, we can find plenty of
evidence of resiliency, courage, and the human spirit.
We’ll conclude with these words from the Tattler:
“It’s nearly time for your roving reporter to
be in bed, girls, so before the Matron catches me giving out with all this
gossip, I’ll take my leave. But, I’ll be watching you – better be good. Bye,
now.”
Sources
Odin W.
Anderson, Ph.D., “Syphilis and Society: Problems of Control in the United
States, 1912-1964,” Health Information Foundation, Research Series 22, 1965,
pp. 18-21.
Edwin
James Cooley, Regional Representative, to Eliot Ness, Director, Division of
Social Protection, Community War Services, February 17, 1944, Seattle Rapid
Treatment Center, Subject Classified Central Files, 1940-1947, the Office
of Community War Services (Record Group 215), National Archives;
Edwin
James Cooley, Regional Representative, to Eliot Ness, Director, Division of
Social Protection, Community War Services, March 7, 1944, Seattle Rapid
Treatment Center, Subject Classified Central Files, 1940-1947, the Office
of Community War Services (Record Group 215), National Archives;
Edwin
James Cooley, Regional Representative, to Eliot Ness, Director, Division of
Social Protection, Community War Services, May 9, 1944, Seattle Rapid Treatment
Center, Subject Classified Central Files, 1940-1947, the Office
of Community War Services (Record Group 215), National Archives;
Lakeview Tattler, various
issues, typescript, undated, Seattle Rapid Treatment Center, Subject Classified
Central Files, 1940-1947, the Office of Community War Services (Record
Group 215), National Archives;
John C.
Cutler, M.D., M.P.H., and R.C. Arnold, M.D., “Venereal Disease Control by
Health Departments in the Past: Lessons for the Present,” American Journal
of Public Health, Vol. 78, No. 4, pp. 372-376;
Marilyn E.
Hegarty, Victory Girls, Khaki-Wackies, and Patriotutes: The Regulation of
Female Sexuality During World War II, Kindle Edition (NYU Press, 2007),
61-84;
A.L.
Ringle, M.D., Director, State Department of Health, to Rogan Jones, Director,
Department of Finance, Business & Budgets, February 19, 1945, Box 12,
Institution Files, 02-A-449, Washington State Archives, Olympia, Washington;
“Lack of
Funds Hits Health Unit,” Seattle Daily Times, April 10, 1949, p. 3;
“Infirmary
Cures 94 Women,” Ibid., May 18, 1944, p. 4;
“Social-Disease
Center May Be Run by State,” Ibid., January 9, 1945, p. 5;
“City to
Operate Woman Hospital,” Ibid., July 29, 1943.
[i] The
city’s application for Lanham Act funding states that in April, 1943, Seattle was “the
third most important source of venereal diseases in the entire country among
the personnel of the U.S. Navy.” Not for nothing did the city’s port area earn
a reputation as a sailortown.
[ii] Edwin James Cooley to Eliot Ness, February 17, 1944.
[iii] Edwin James Cooley to Eliot Ness, May 9, 1944.
[iv]
Tattler. Note the pages of the Tattler are undated and unpaginated.
[v]
Tattler, undated. Item likely submitted by the facility’s medical director.
[vi] Memorandum, “Results of Talk with State Health Department,” undated, Washington State Archives.
[viii]
Correspondence, RTC Grand Mound, Washington State Archives
[ix] Placement Officer to Ines Taylor, Pierce County Welfare Department, December 29, 1944, retrieved from Washington State Archives.
[x]
Arrest records, Pierce County, retrieved from Ancestry.com
[xii] Tattler, undated. WAVES were “Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service,” part of the
naval reserves.
[xiii] "Husband Killed in Action, She Joins Waves Here," Seattle Post-Intelligencer, undated clipping.
A monk surprises a ghost in the abbey
library, 1704 German illustration
