Abigail Hopper Gibbons (December 7, 1801 – January 16, 1893) was a schoolteacher, abolitionist, and social welfare activist, who assisted in founding numerous programs and societies during and following the Civil War.
She grew up in a Quaker family, and her father, Isaac Hopper, spent much of his time and money aiding runaway slaves. His daughter would come to share her father's beliefs and spent much of her life working for social reforms, including prison reform, welfare, civil rights, and care for soldiers returning from the Civil War. Eventually, a political shift in the Quaker organization resulted in Gibbons' father and husband being disowned by the society for their anti-slavery activities. Abigail Gibbons left the organization and never returned.
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She was born in Philadelphia in 1801, the third of ten children. Her father, Isaac T. Hopper, was of the Hicksite branch of Quakers and became an active and leading member of The Pennsylvania Abolition Society, often in direct confrontation with slave kidnappers who had deluged Philadelphia. Hopper also sheltered many poor Quakers in his house, despite his family's large size and unstable financial status. The Hoppers were frequently called upon to protect the rights of African-Americans and garnered a reputation as friends and advisers of the "oppressed race" in all emergencies. Hopper was also an overseer of the Benezet School for African-American children and a volunteer teacher in a free school for African-American adults.
Abigail Hopper taught school for several years in Philadelphia and New York. In 1833, she married a fellow Quaker, James Sloan Gibbons, who was also an ardent abolitionist. In 1836, the pair moved to New York City, where they had six children. Two of their sons died in infancy, and a third died suddenly after an accident in which he was involved while attending Harvard University.
Gibbons and her father founded the Women's Prison Association (WPA) of New York City in 1845. She lobbied for improvements in the city's prisons, advocated the hiring of police matrons, and urged the establishment of separate prisons for women. She frequently visited the various prisons in and about New York. For twelve years, she was also president of a German industrial school for street children. In 1853, the Women's Prison Association separated from its parent, the Prison Association, and Gibbons obtained a New York State charter for her group. Under her leadership, the WPA undertook an aggressive program of legislative lobbying. She protested jail overcrowding and demanded that women prisoners be searched only by female matrons.
With the coming of the war, Gibbons knew that nurses would be needed to care for the wounded. The United States Sanitary Commission was established in 1861, shortly after the Civil War began, with the purpose to recruit nurses and to provide adequate medical care to the Union wounded. When the Commission set up a training base at David's Island Hospital in New York, Gibbons was among the trainees.
She traveled to Washington D.C., to help at the Washington Office Hospital, helping the wounded and distributing supplies. She also helped to establish two field hospitals in Virginia. At Point Lookout, Maryland, the government took over a hotel and 100 guest cottages and converted them into a hospital complex with accommodations for 1500 soldiers. It was named Hammond General Hospital. Gibbons vied with Dorothea Dix, the Union Superintendent of Nurses, for control of the hospital, and Gibbons was finally appointed its head matron. She left the hospital in 1863, when it was converted into Point Lookout Confederate Prison.
On Tuesday, July 14, 1863, Gibbons' Manhattan home at 339 West 29th Street was attacked by rioters during the Draft Riots due to her staunch support for abolitionism, despite the fact that Gibbons' Women's Prison Association (WPA) clients were Irish immigrants struggling with alcohol dependency, made worse by the extreme poverty in which they lived. Gibbons and her staff worked tirelessly to provide these women with a place to stay, a supportive community, and practical skills training. They created programs for these women, who had previously only known poverty and trouble in their lives.[1]
Following the war, Gibbons was involved in several New York charities, including the Labor and Aid Society, which helped returning veterans find work. She co-founded the Isaac Hopper Home, named for her own father, which was charged with assisting former women prisoners to integrate into society after being released from prison.
Gibbons died in 1893, aged 91, and was eulogized in her obituary as "one of the most remarkable women of the century". Aside from the WPA, she helped found the New York Diet Kitchen (for infants, the edlerly and the poor), and served as president of the New York Committee for the Prevention and Regulation of Vice.
The WPA still provides programs through which women can acquire the life skills necessary to lead a productive life and to make good choices for themselves and their families. It is the nation's oldest advocacy organization working exclusively with women prisoners.