Maimie Pinzer

Maimie Pinzer (1885-1940) was a native of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her father died when she was 13; she therefore left school in order to help at home, and also had a series of jobs in department stores. Because Maimie and her mother fought constantly she left home on several occasions to live briefly with men. Finally she left home permanently. In 1904-1905 Maimie was hospitalized for morphine addiction, and one eye had to be removed. During this time she met a Philadelphia social worker who helped her give up her life as a prostitute, and encouraged a correspondence between Maimie and Fanny Quincy Howe (Mrs. M. A. DeWolfe Howe) of Boston, which makes up the bulk of this collection.

After leaving the hospital, Maimie met and married her first husband. In the spring of 1911, they decided to live separately and in July Maimie moved to New York City to live with the man whom she married in 1917 after her divorce.

Maimie returned to Philadelphia in November 1911, living at the home of her brother, and studying stenography. In May 1912 she took a job as a stenographer with a meat-processing firm in White Plains, New York. Here she became deeply involved in the lives of the elderly couple with whom she lived.

Maimie moved to a branch office of the firm in Wilmington, Delaware, and again in 1913 to a branch office in Montreal, Canada. In 1914, Maimie and three friends established the Business Aid Bureau, a firm which duplicated and wrote letters for Montreal businesses. Always plagued with landlord and personnel problems, the BAB suffered from the general decline in the economy after the outbreak of World War I and by the spring of 1915 had ceased to function.

During 1915 Maimie began the Montreal Mission for Friendless Girls, a half-way house for young prostitutes. The correspondence between 1915 and 1918 describes Maimie's efforts to establish the Home and keep it going as well as the individual girls, how they came to her, their problems, feelings, and how they fit into the life of the Home.

From the guide to the Papers, 1910-1922, (Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute)