Background

Hastings Hornell Hart was born on December 14, 1851 in Brookfield, Ohio, United States. He was the second son and third child in a family of five children. His father, Major Albert G. Hart, was a veteran of the Civil War and a practising physician, a descendant of Stephen Hart, who arrived from England in 1632, living for a few years at what is now Cambridge, Massachussets, where he served as deacon of Reverend Thomas Hooker's church. He went with Hooker's company to Connecticut in 1636. After a brief sojourn at Hartford he settled at Farmington which he later represented at various times in the legislative assembly of the colony. Hart's mother was Mary Crosby Hornell, whose great-great-grandfather was a Swedish clergyman, Nicholas Hornell, who emigrated to America in 1762.

Education

After the graduation, first from the Cleveland Institute in 1867, and then from Oberlin College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1875, Hart spent two years in the Indian Service as clerk at the Sisseton Agency, South Dakota, but resigned to prepare for the ministry.

He completed his training at the Andover Theological Seminary in 1880, in the same year accepted a pastorate at Worthington, Minnesota, and on February 2, 1881, was ordained a minister of the Congregational Church.

Career

In 1883 Hart left the ministry for the field of social work, becoming the first secretary of the Minnesota State Board of Charities and Corrections. In 1898 he left this position to become superintendent of the Illinois Children's Home and Aid Society, remaining until 1909, when he became director of the child-helping department of the Russell Sage Foundation. During the last eight years of his life he was the Foundation's consultant in delinquency and penology.

His original interest was in the penological field. While connected with the Minnesota State Board, he drafted the law reorganizing the prison system of the state, designed a model jail for small communities, and traveled all over the nation in a study of prison labor problems.

His work in Illinois and at the Russell Sage Foundation until 1924 took him largely into the field of child welfare. It was he who drafted the juvenile court law for Cook County, the first law of its kind in the world. But the declining years of his life found him again concentrating on penal problems, especially the vexing county-jail question.

As chairman of the American Prison Association's committee on jails, he carried on a continuous campaign for the reform of these neglected institutions and prepared plans for their construction and management. At the meetings of the National Conference of Social Work, the American Prison Association, and the International Prison Congress he was a familiar figure. He served the first of these organizations as president (1893) and general secretary (1894-1901); the second as president (1921-1922); and the third as vice-president (1925).

He died on May 9, 1932.

Achievements

• Hastings Hornell Hart is remembered as a prominent social worker and penologist who carried on a continuous campaign for the reform of these prisons and prepared plans for their construction and management, thus becoming one of the commanding figures in social work in the United States.

Works

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  • Social Problems of Alabama: A Study of the Social Institutions and Agencies of the State of Alabama as Related to Its War Activities (Classic Reprint)

    (Excerpt from Social Problems of Alabama: A Study of the S...)

  • Correction and Prevention, Volume 1

    (This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)

  • The Registration of Illegitimate Births: A Preventive of Infant Mortality - Scholar's Choice Edition

    ( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)

  • A Social Welfare Program for the State of Florida: Prepared at the Request of His Excellency, Sidney J. Catts, Governor, and the Cabinet of State Officers (Classic Reprint)

    (Excerpt from A Social Welfare Program for the State of Fl...)

  • The Registration of Illegitimate Births: A Preventive of Infant Mortality

    (This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curat...)

  • The Reformation Of Criminals (1890)

    (This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)

  • The Lutheran Church In York, Penn'a: An Historical Discourse Delivered September 23rd, 1883, At The One Hundred And Fiftieth Anniversary Of The Establishment Of Christ's Church...

    (This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)

  • Juvenile Court Laws in the United States: A Summary by States (1910)

    (Originally published in 1910. This volume from the Cornel...)

Religion

Hart was a member of the Congregational Church.

Personality

Hart's sturdy figure with its rough-hewn and large-featured face, adorned in his later years with a white walrus mustache, his rapid and nervous motions, and his energetic speech made him conspicuous in all gatherings, while his generous and sympathetic nature endeared him to all who learned to know him. He embraced, with enthusiasm, every cause in which he was interested, but he was a stranger to sentimentalism. His practical sense demanded a robust factual basis for all reforms.

Connections

Hart was married three times. His first wife was Mary Almanda Prosser, to whom he was married in 1880. She died in 1881, a few days after the birth of a son, William Prosser. In 1886 he was married to Laura Eveline Love; they had four children - Laurance Hastings, Hornell, Helen Love, and Frances Jeannette. In 1902, two years after his second wife's death, he was married to Josephine Mary Newton, who with two children, Elizabeth Haven and Albert Gailord, survived him.

Father:

Albert G. Hart

Mother:

Mary Crosby (Hornell) Hart

Spouse:

Josephine Mary (Newton) Hart

Spouse:

Laura Eveline (Love) Hart

Spouse:

Mary Almanda (Prosser) Hart

Daughter:

Frances Jeannette Hart

Daughter:

Helen Love Hart

Daughter:

Elizabeth Haven Hart

Son:

Albert Gailord Hart

Son:

Hornell Hart

Son:

Laurance Hastings

Son:

William Prosser Hart

References

• The Abridged Compendium of American Genealogy, First Families of America: A Genealogical Encyclopedia of the United States (7 Volumes)
• Genealogical History of Deacon Stephen Hart and His Descendants, 1632-1875: With an Introduction of Miscellaneous Harts and Their Progenitors, as Far ... Name Found, All the Physicians, All the Lawye
• WHOS WHO IN AMERICA 1932-1933 (TWO YEARS)