Celebrated prison reformer Miriam Van Waters made history for her sensational battle to retain the superintendency of the Massachusetts Reformatory for Women in 1949. Maternal Justice provides a compelling biography of this early lesbian activist by moving beyond the controversy to tell the story of a remarkable woman whose success rested upon the power of her own charismatic leadership.

Estelle B. Freedman draws from Van Waters's diaries, letters, and personal papers to recreate her complex personal life, unveiling the disparity between Van Waters's public persona and her agonized private soul. With the power and elegance of a novel, Maternal Justice illuminates this historical context, casting light on the social welfare tradition, on women's history, on the American feminist movement, and on the history of sexuality.

"Maternal Justice is as much a work of history as it is biography, bringing to life not only a remarkable woman but also the complex political and social milieu within which she worked and lived."—Kelleher Jewett, The Nation

"This sympathetic biography reclaims Van Waters for history."—Publishers Weekly

"The Van Waters legacy, as Freedman gracefully presents, is that she cared about the lives of women behind bars. It is a strikingly unfashionable sentiment today."—Jane Meredith Adams, San Francisco Chronicle Book Review, Editor's Recommended Selection

"This finely crafted biography is both an engrossing read and a richly complicated account of a reformer whose work . . . bridged the eras of voluntarist charitable activism and professional social service."—Sherri Broder, Women's Review of Books

"This is a sympathetic, highly personal biography, revealing of both the author's responses to her subject's life and, in considerable detail, Van Waters's family traumas, illnesses, and love affairs."—Elizabeth Israels Perry, Journal of American History

The hiring of women as guards in men's prisons represents a major breakthrough in women's efforts to achieve full sexual equality in the workplace. This dramatic social change has required great flexibility on the part of the women guards as well as substantial adjustments by their male counterparts, prison administrators, and the inmates themselves. In the first comprehensive study of this phenomenon, Lynn Zimmer examines the experiences of the women and men involved in the painful process of transition from a segregated to an integrated prison environment. Women Guarding Men is significant not only for its vivid depiction of their trials, but for its contribution to a general theory of women's occupational and organizational behavior.