First Case of Child Abuse

2021-02-21 15:14:27 Written by Aamir liaqat

The Face of Child Abuse.

 

“My father and mother are both dead. I don’t know how old I am. I have no memory of a time when I did not live with the Connollys. Mamma has been in the addiction of whipping and hitting me almost every day. She used to beat me with a twisted whip—a rawhide. The whip always left a black and blue mark on my body. I have now the black and blue marks on my skull which were made by Mamma and also a slash on the left side of my forehead which was made by a pair of scissors. She hit me with the scissors and cut me; I have no memory of ever having been kissed by anyone—have never been kissed by Mamma. I have never been taken on my mamma's lap and hugged or petted. I never tempted to speak to anybody, because if I did, I would get beaten. I do not know for what I was whipped—Mamma never said anything to me when she whipped me. I do not like to go back to live with Mamma, because she whips me so. I have no memory ever being on the street in my life.”

Above is the court statement of then-10-year-old, Mary Ellen McCormack, a resident of Hell's Kitchen in New York City, and a casualty of drastic abuse by her foster mother since she was a toddler.

 

In 1874 when this distressing photo was taken, no laws were protecting abused children. The case would later be taken and aided by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. It has been asserted animals had more liberties than children did in those days. It was a period of “spare the rod and spoil the child,” and parents routinely meted out severe and harmful punishment without comment or penalty.

Mary Ellen was an adopted child, orphaned at a young age. Her birth father was a Union soldier who perished in the Second Battle of Cold Harbor, in Virginia. Her mother, a laundry worker, could no longer care for her daughter so she gave her up to the city orphanage on Blackwells Island. 

 

A few years later, Mary Ellen was adopted by a Manhattan couple, Thomas and Mary McCormack. But Thomas perished soon after the adoption, and his widow wedded Francis Connolly. Miserable and overburdened, the adoptive mother took out all her misery upon Mary Ellen and took to physically abusing her.

 

Her foster mother urged her to do heavy labour, frequently beat, burned, and slash the child and locked her in a closet. When a tense neighbour earned access to Connoly's apartment, she found Mary Ellen severely malnourished and physically whipped with visible scars. She was also barefoot in December (Wintertime in New York).

 

A jury sentenced Mrs Connolly to attack and battery and the judge convicted her to 1 year in jail. That year, with thanks to the media spotlight gained, the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children was founded, the first organization of its kind.