Julia Tutwiler

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Julia Strudwick Tutwiler (1841-1916) fame came from her devotion, interest, and untiring work in education, prison reform, and writing. She was probably the best educated woman of her time in Alabama because her devoted father saw that she studied in the first class at Vassar College, in Germany and Paris, and under professors at Washington University and Lee University in Virginia. As President of Livingston State Normal School, she gained the title of "Mother of Co-Education in Alabama" because she forced the entry of ten girls to the University of Alabama, assuring herself first that they were qualified. Later, she was instrumental in establishing what is today the University of Montevallo.

This same outstanding woman became known as "Angel of the Prisons." She almost single-handedly brought about the separation of hardened criminals from small offenders and reform in the convict leasing system of prisons to privately owned mines. Julia Tutwiler Woman's Prison is named for her, and she was instrumental in establishing the first Boys' Industrial School.

"Little, little can I give thee. Alabama, mother mine; But that little--hand, brain, spirit, All I have, and am are thine."

These words written by Miss Tutwiler were part of what later became the Alabama state song. She gave the "little--hand, brain, spirit" and left behind her numerous evidences of her work to build a better state. She was among the first group of women elected to the Alabama Women's Hall of Fame, established at Judson College in Marion, Alabama in 1970.

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