Partner Miriam Van Waters
Queer Places:
Smith College (Seven Sisters), 9 Elm St, Northampton, MA 01063
Vassar College (Seven Sisters), 124 Raymond Ave, Poughkeepsie, NY 12604
Swan Point Cemetery
Providence, Providence County, Rhode Island, USA
Anna Spicer Gladding (December 7, 1906 - May 29, 1992) began a 42-year association with the Reformatory for Women in Framingham, Mass. in 1932, where she was involved in the mother-child program and served as prison librarian, organist and choir director, and leader of the literary and nature study clubs. Her partner, Miriam Van Waters, was superintendent of the Reformatory for Women (1932-1957). Van Waters’s liberal views on penal reform brought her both praise and condemnation.
Anna Spicer Gladding was born in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1906 or 1907, the daughter of Royal Henry Gladding and Anna Carpenter Spicer. She was a graduate of Vassar College and studied early childhood education at the Merrill School in Detroit. She applied her education first as a teacher in the Smith College Nursery School, and then in the nursery at the Reformatory for Women in Framingham, Massachusetts, where she was hired the same year, 1932, that Miriam Van Waters became superintendent. In 1957 she became the reformatory's librarian. She was also director of the Friendly Visitors' program, organist and choir director, and leader of the literary discussion and nature study groups.
She retired in 1984, and died in Ashland, Massachusetts, on May 29, 1992.
My published books: