The Wisconsin Industrial School for Girls is located in Milwaukee, on Lake Avenue, in that part of the city known as North Point. It is capable of accommodating 240 inmates.

Its proper subjects are:

1. Viciously inclined girls under 18, and boys under 10 years of age.

2. The stubborn and unruly, who refuse to obey their proper guardians.

3. Truants, vagrants and beggars.

4. Those found in circumstances of manifest danger of falling into habits of vice and immorality, for want of proper care.

5. Those under the above ages who have committed any offense punishable by fine or imprisonment in adult offenders.

Although the school was founded by private charity, and is under the control of a self-perpetuating board of managers, it is incorporated and employed by the state for the custody, guardianship, discipline and instruction of the aforenamed children. In default of responsible and efficient guardianship they are treated as minors and wards of the state, and by it they are committed to the guardianship of this board of ladies during minority.

The present statute provides that for each girl so committed the county from which such commitment is made shall pay not more than two dollars and fifty cents per week.

It is designed to be in no sense a penal institution, but it is a reformatory for the older, a temporary place of detention and instruction for the younger. Its objects are detention and reformation.

The school was organized under the act of 1875, and has received from the Legislature, in 1878, 1880, 1881, 1882, 1885, 1887, 1889, 1891 and 1893, sums amounting to $83,000 for buildings, improvements, stocks and furnishings. The city of Milwaukee has also given for its use a tract of over eight acres of land, the state holding the title to this property.

The buildings, as completed by the successive appropriations, and affording the requisites for distinct family life, are designated as the Main Building, Russell Cottage, Lynde Cottage, Cottage Annex, Assembly Hall, Steward's Home and Steam Heating Plant.

The Main Building accommodates three distinct families, viz., Main Home, Intermediate Home and Children's Home.

The Main Home is for girls from sixteen to twenty-one years of age; the Intermediate for girls from twelve to sixteen; and the Children's Home for children under twelve years. This building affords imperfect facilities for suitable separation, and good facilities for instruction.

The cottages are additional and entirely separate buildings for proper restraint and influence over unchaste girls.

On leaving the school, children are either returned to their former homes or relatives, or given by adoption or indenture to the care of well-recommended families. Boys are transferred to the State Industrial School for Boys, if unfit for homes in families, when of unsuitable age to remain longer in the school.

The Blue Book of the State of Wisconsin. Complied and published under the direction of Wm. H. Froehlich, Secretary of State. 1901. page 525 - 526

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