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In 1891, the House of Mercy, a notorious asylum for “destitute and fallen women,” stood on the highest point of Manhattan’s Inwood Hill Park, a massive, foreboding building stretching the length of the plateau. The women it imprisoned were not privy to the view from the barred windows of their dormitory, or from the steaming laundry room, certainly not from the basement where they were isolated for the smallest infraction. These women were lucky if they made it through a day without crushing a finger or scalding their hands from the vats of boiling water as they scrubbed, ironed, and folded. Their endless, long days were spent with overworked, aching limbs and searing headaches from the gas fumes in the enclosed laundry room, praying they wouldn’t fall ill from tuberculosis and be sent to die, wretched and alone, in the House of Rest for Consumptives, another grand building just up the road.
I have stood on that picturesque hillside imagining the mansion that once loomed there, the women’s faces pressed up against the bars, anger and injustice simmering in their eyes. The determination. |
When I first began research for The Girls with No Names, I knew nothing about the House of Mercy. I was caught up in the horrors of the highly publicized Irish Magdalene laundries, asylums the church sold for millions of dollars with unmarked cemeteries containing graves that couldn’t be accounted for—was good stuff for fiction.
But once I dug in, I discovered a number of Magdalene Laundries existed right here, in the United States. The first one opened in Kentucky in 1843. By the end of the century, twenty-four more followed. These were religious institutions claiming to help destitute women, to reform them, put in place to convict women of crimes of a sexual nature. In actuality, they imprisoned women and children of all ages for any behavior deemed “immoral.” They were, in fact, prisons. It made no difference what they were called: penitentiaries, houses, or laundries. These socially acceptable establishments imprisoned, abused, and enslaved women and children while the church made millions from their laundry service and lacemaking.
I spent hours unearthing articles on the House of Mercy in an attempt to give life to these women. As my research continued, I realized that at least Ireland had exposed the corruption of the church in the name of salvation while the laundries masquerading as religious institutions in the United States were never held accountable. The women’s stories about what happened to them inside homes like New York’s House of Mercy are rarely spoken about, much less remembered.
From the lives of these real and daring women, Effie, Mable, and Luella were born. Through them, I wanted to create a tapestry of New York City at the turn of the century made up of immigrants and tenements, of the Romani who camped in Inwood, along with the wealthy Victorians clinging to their traditional values, even as the youth of the gilded age shed these same values.
I would like to briefly addresses the use of the word “gypsy” throughout the novel. The word can be read as offensive as it fails to distinguish the Romany people—an ethnic community driven from their homeland—from travelers enacting a lifestyle choice. And yet, I chose to use the word “gypsy” because of the historical setting and the characters who would not be aware of different language to use, to maintain historical accuracy. I am aware that the word “gypsy” is seen by many as offensive, and again, the usage here is meant to be indicative of a time and place and is not in any way reflective of my own views of the Roma community.
I thoroughly researched the lives of the Romany people in 1910 America with the desire to create characters that would reflect reality and not perpetuate stereotypes or disparaging beliefs. It is my hope that I have portrayed these characters – Patience, Tray, Marcella, Sydney – with accuracy and respect, and that through the flawed humanness of all of my characters, the lines of poverty and privilege and culture differences are challenged in ways that shows us, in the end, how similar we all are.
In The Girls with No Names, all of these worlds collide and intertwine in unexpected ways, while exposing the dark reality of what it was like to be a woman in each of these social circles in 1913. Effie, Mable, and Luella’s voices echo the voices of women whose stories were never told, women who suffered and endured and survived.
But once I dug in, I discovered a number of Magdalene Laundries existed right here, in the United States. The first one opened in Kentucky in 1843. By the end of the century, twenty-four more followed. These were religious institutions claiming to help destitute women, to reform them, put in place to convict women of crimes of a sexual nature. In actuality, they imprisoned women and children of all ages for any behavior deemed “immoral.” They were, in fact, prisons. It made no difference what they were called: penitentiaries, houses, or laundries. These socially acceptable establishments imprisoned, abused, and enslaved women and children while the church made millions from their laundry service and lacemaking.
I spent hours unearthing articles on the House of Mercy in an attempt to give life to these women. As my research continued, I realized that at least Ireland had exposed the corruption of the church in the name of salvation while the laundries masquerading as religious institutions in the United States were never held accountable. The women’s stories about what happened to them inside homes like New York’s House of Mercy are rarely spoken about, much less remembered.
From the lives of these real and daring women, Effie, Mable, and Luella were born. Through them, I wanted to create a tapestry of New York City at the turn of the century made up of immigrants and tenements, of the Romani who camped in Inwood, along with the wealthy Victorians clinging to their traditional values, even as the youth of the gilded age shed these same values.
I would like to briefly addresses the use of the word “gypsy” throughout the novel. The word can be read as offensive as it fails to distinguish the Romany people—an ethnic community driven from their homeland—from travelers enacting a lifestyle choice. And yet, I chose to use the word “gypsy” because of the historical setting and the characters who would not be aware of different language to use, to maintain historical accuracy. I am aware that the word “gypsy” is seen by many as offensive, and again, the usage here is meant to be indicative of a time and place and is not in any way reflective of my own views of the Roma community.
I thoroughly researched the lives of the Romany people in 1910 America with the desire to create characters that would reflect reality and not perpetuate stereotypes or disparaging beliefs. It is my hope that I have portrayed these characters – Patience, Tray, Marcella, Sydney – with accuracy and respect, and that through the flawed humanness of all of my characters, the lines of poverty and privilege and culture differences are challenged in ways that shows us, in the end, how similar we all are.
In The Girls with No Names, all of these worlds collide and intertwine in unexpected ways, while exposing the dark reality of what it was like to be a woman in each of these social circles in 1913. Effie, Mable, and Luella’s voices echo the voices of women whose stories were never told, women who suffered and endured and survived.