Schoff, Hannah Kent (1853–1940)

American welfare worker and reformer. Born Hannah Kent on June 3, 1853, in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania; died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on December 10, 1940; daughter of Thomas Kent and Fanny (Leonard) Kent; attended Longstreth School in Philadelphia; attended the Waltham (Massachusetts) Church School; married Frederic Schoff (an engineer), in 1873 (died c. 1922); children: Wilfred Harvey (b. 1874), Edith Gertrude (b. 1877), Louise (b. 1880), Leonard Hastings (b. 1884), Harold Kent (b. 1886), Eunice Margaret (b. 1890), and Albert Lawrence (b. 1894).

Elected president of the National Congress of Mothers (later the National Congress of Parents and Teachers), a group that lobbied for reform in child labor, marriage laws, and education; lobbied for the passage of legislation in Philadelphia that established a separate juvenile court system; wrote The Wayward Child (1915) and Wisdom of the Ages in Bringing Up Children (1933).

Born the oldest of five children on June 3, 1853, Hannah Kent Schoff grew up in the Pennsylvania towns of Upper Darby and Clifton Heights. She received her education at the Longstreth School in Philadelphia and the Waltham Church School in Massachusetts before marrying Massachusetts engineer Frederic Schoff in 1873. Schoff spent much of the first 20 years of their marriage raising their seven children. She did not embark on her career in child-welfare reform until the close of the 19th century.

In 1897, Schoff attended the first National Congress of Mothers in Washington, D.C., as a representative of the New Century Club. She rapidly made her influence felt within the Congress and, in 1899, organized the Pennsylvania Congress of Mothers, a state branch of the national organization. Only three years later, she secured promotion to the presidency of the national body and put her powerful administrative abilities to work. Schoff's vision for the National Congress of Mothers included the establishment of parent-teacher organizations within the schools; her success in promoting this agenda was reflected in the group's change of name in 1908 to the National Congress of Mothers and Parent-Teacher Organizations, later the National Congress of Parents and Teachers. In 1910, she was a U.S. delegate to the Third International Congress for Home Education in Brussels. As special collaborator with the U.S. Bureau of Education from 1913 to 1919, Schoff helped establish a federal Home Education Division. She added to her busy schedule by taking on the directorship of the National Kindergarten Association and founding the Philadelphia Alliance for the Care of Babies in 1913.

Schoff was equally devoted to the cause of child-welfare reform, advocating support of child labor legislation, standardized marriage and divorce laws, and federal assistance towards the education of young children through committees within the National Congress. Her 18 years of service to the Congress established its national headquarters in Washington, D.C., and produced 29 more state branches and a membership roll that boasted 190,000. Along with the increased membership, Schoff ensured that the organization had future funding through an endowment fund.

Schoff was every bit as passionate about wayward children in prison as she was about children in school. In 1899, she initiated a movement for reform in the treatment of juvenile offenders after becoming acquainted with the case of an eight-year-old Philadelphia girl arrested and imprisoned for arson. Horrified to learn that the youngster was kept in the same prison as hardened adult criminals, she managed to secure the release of the child into a foster home, where she blossomed. Schoff later conducted a survey and discovered that almost 500 children were incarcerated with adults in Philadelphia's criminal justice system. She formed a committee of the New Century Club that researched the treatment of juvenile offenders across the nation and drew up bills for new legislation. Her ultimate goal was the establishment of separate juvenile courts and detention homes, as well as a probation system for juvenile offenders. In May 1901, the state legislature in Pennsylvania signaled their agreement with her petitions by passing them into law.

Schoff did not interpret this legislative victory as the end of her reform work. Now that her reforms had passed into law, she wanted to make sure that the juvenile court set up in Philadelphia (only the second in the nation) functioned properly. She became president of the Philadelphia Juvenile Court and Probation Association in 1901, serving until 1923, and sat in on nearly every trial that came through the court's doors in an eight-year period. She also took charge in recommending probation officers and raising money for their salaries. Now a recognized expert in this field, she counseled other states in the development of juvenile court systems, and even traveled to Canada as the first woman invited to speak before Parliament.

The year 1909 brought yet another appointment for Schoff when she became chair of the American Committee on the Causes of Crime in Normal Children, under the direction of the U.S. Bureau of Education. She built on her already extensive knowledge of juvenile delinquency through a nationwide survey designed to explore the origins of childhood criminal behavior, and published her findings in The Wayward Child in 1915. The book further exposed the need for reform in the legal system as it pertained to children. Schoff also authored a second book, Wisdom of the Ages in Bringing Up Children, published in 1933. Her prodigious energy finally tapered off at the close of the 1930s, and she died of a cerebral hemorrhage on December 10, 1940.

sources:

James, Edward T., ed. Notable American Women, 1607–1950. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University, 1971.

McHenry, Robert, ed. Famous American Women. NY: Dover, 1980.

Bonnie Burns , Ph.D., Cambridge, Massachusetts