Encouraged by her husband, she entered and graduated from the Women's Medical College of Georgia in 1892 as a doctor of medicine. She brought this medical knowledge into her work. Dr. Barrett started a home for wayward women in Atlanta and it was there in 1893 that Kate Waller Barrett first met Charles Crittenton, which was the beginning of a long and significant association.
In 1895, a home was established in the nation's capital that soon became national headquarters for the Florence Crittenton Mission and a model for other homes throughout the nation. Charles Crittenton was president and Dr. Barrett was the vice-president. The homes offered shelter and medical care for unwed mothers who helped care for the home. Births were usually in the Home (under medical supervision). The homes also offered adoption services.
In 1893, a building, accommodating twelve to fifteen young women, was created at 711 South 13th Street [now University Drive] in Fargo, with the help of a $ 1,000 contribution from Charles Crittenton. The land was donated by Hannah E. Briggs. I believe that this is the building on the left in the picture above. The Women's Christian Temperance Union (W.C.T.U) of North Dakota had responsibility of maintaining the home, which served unwed mothers. In 1908, the Florence Crittenton Mission took over the work of the W.C.T.U. home. The main building site was completed in 1911 (the building on the right in the picture above).
The Articles of Incorporation for the Florence Crittenton Home were amended in 1971 with a change of purpose and name. The name Fraser Hall was chosen to honor Mrs. Irene Fraser (member of the Board of Directors) and to give a new focus to a program for the developmentally disabled. You may learn more about the distinguished history of service to Fargo by this organization at the Fraser Hall website.
[Note: The name of the original organization is often seen misspelled as "Crittenden."]
The pictures are from the State Historical Society of North Dakota Museum Collection A1890 (exterior) and A1891 (interior).
Florence Crittenton, the daughter of a prominent New York businessman, Charles Crittenton, was four years old when she died of scarlet fever in 1882. Devastated by the death of his beloved Florence, the millionaire father began attending prayer meetings.
It was at one of these meetings that Charles Crittenton met an evangelist, Smith Allen. During a missionary tour with Allen to the "red light district," Crittenton met two young prostitutes and told them how the death of his much loved daughter led to his religious conversion. The girls, moved by Crittenton's story, expressed a desire to also lead a Christian life. To his dismay, Crittenton discovered that there were no alternatives to life on the streets for these young women.
From that day until the first home was opened on April 19, 1883, Charles Crittenton devoted himself to providing a safe haven for the young women of the streets. When that first home opened in New York City to serve "lost and fallen girls," it was called "The Florence Night Mission" in memory of his own daughter. For the next 25 years, Crittenton devoted his life to the National Florence Crittenton Mission, as the organization he founded came to be known.
Kate Waller Barrett came to devote her life to helping unwed mothers and their babies. Born into a well-to-do Virginia family in 1857, it was after her marriage to the Reverend Dr. Robert S. Barrett that she was exposed to the hardships unwed mothers had to endure in the eyes and attitudes of Victorian America.
Fargo, North Dakota
Florence Crittenton Home