Florence Garretson Spooner was born in Baltimore. On her mother's side she is descended from one of the most noted families of colonial history in Maryland. Her ancestors were of the Dorsey, Worthington, Howard, and Hammond connection, which united the best blood of the State. One of her great-grandfathers was William Ball, closely related to the mother of Washington. The Garrettsons, on her father's side, were among the earliest settlers of Maryland and New York. In the year 1752 the Rev. Freeborn Garretson gave up his grants of land, and freed his slaves through religious convictions. He became a missionary of the Methodist Episcopal Church, travelling from the Carolinas to Nova Scotia on horseback. His wife, Katherine Livingston, was a daughter of Judge Livingston and sister to Robert R. Livingston, the first Chancellor of New York.
Mrs. Spooner in girlhood and early womanhood was devoted to music, using her rare voice in many choirs as a gift of love, and belonging to the most exclusive musical clubs. Her natural talent for organization made her a centre of attraction, where she stood at the helm of many church and society functions. With further knowledge and experience her life broadened and character developed. She served on philanthropic committees, thus turning into practical channels her sympathetic and over-abundant compassion for the sorrows and needs of unfortunates. An earnest and enthusiastic worker in her chosen field of reform, efficient in many ways, she has been described as "a religious, consuming soul, always in communication with the authorities of Church and State, going straight on, radiating in a hundred directions, bringing forces to bear on the whole circumference of unusual cruelties. The doors have fallen, and light has illuminated dark places: and she will succeed in what she undertakes because she has just that faith that will remove mountains, the mountains of prejudice and persistence." Time and the Hour says: "Florence Spooner's name has become as famous as Elizabeth Fry and Dorothea Dix, and her charity has taken the form of divine fire."
Mrs. Spooner has studied untiringly the prison system in America. Her humane and practical requests have seldom been denied. She has succeeded in getting notable people together at important houses and in the chapels of leading churches. Bishops, governors, and other officials have so recognized her great earnestness, sincerity, and simplicity that they have been moved to say the right word at the right time: and for this reason she insists that the credit for the successful agitation and awakening of the public conscience to the evils existing in the prisons belongs to the wise men of a marvellous century.
In 1894 Governor Greenhalge gave his support to her cause by presiding at a meeting where three subjects were especially advocated—abolition of dungeons (dark cells), the indeterminate sentence, and the supplanting of houses of correction by reformatories. Prison commissioners and representatives of the Prison Association and other organizations participated in the discussion. This meeting, the first held by the Prison Reform League, was arranged by Mrs. Spooner, Mrs. James T. Fields, and Miss Mason. Among other conferences held by Mrs. Spooner and her co-workers was one at Trinity Church Chapel, presided over by Mayor Quincy.
The successful work accomplished by Mrs. Spooner toward the abolishment of dark cells in the city prisons and the good done by her was specially commended by Dr. Alfred B. Heath, Commissioner, Institutions Department of the City of Boston, in 1896. Penal Commissioner Ernest C. Marshall has also officially endorsed her beneficent work. The League has agitated the subject of the present system of fines for drunkenness, which they consider as indefensible. The Police Commission responded promptly to their request for co-operation, and Chairman Martin invited Mrs. Spooner, Mr. Robert Treat Paine, Commissioner Marshall, and a Sister of St. Margaret's to make a midnight tour of inspection of station-house cells as a study of the subject.
In 1896–97, under the guidance of leading men, wise and conservative, she engaged in the movement to abolish capital punishment, resulting in the substitution of the electric chair for the scaffold. She organized the Anti-Death Penalty League in 1897, and, after the first
