Ladie’s department of the Nizhny Novgorod prison board of trustees (late 1911–1912): reasons for creation, functions, historical significance

The article is devoted to the charitable activities of the «Ladies’ branch of the Nizhny Novgorod prison board», which in late 1911–1912 was headed by Ekaterina Aleksandrovna Khvostova, the wife of Nizhny Novgorod governor Alexei Nikolaevich Khvostov. During the entire existence of the Nizhny Novgorod prison committee (1846–1917) this was the first and only experience of the functioning of the Ladies’ department created under it. The novelty of this article lies in the formulation of the problem, the involvement of new historical sources. The chronological framework is determined by the time of operation of this charity. The main historical source was the Case of the Nizhny Novgorod provincial prison inspectorate “I” Office work. About the correspondence of the Nizhny Novgorod Ladies’ branch of the Society for the care of prisons in 1911. It is stored in the fund 386 Nizhny Novgorod prison inspectorate (1908–1918) of the Central archive of the Nizhny Novgorod region. Unpublished epistolary and clerical materials, reference materials, pre–revolutionary periodical press — the journal Prison bulletin were used. The author came to the conclusion that the main reason for the creation of the Ladies’ department of the Nizhny Novgorod prison committee was the fight against child crime, the need to open special educational and correctional institutions for detained children and juvenile delinquents, who were held mainly together with adult prisoners in prisons of the Russian empire at the beginning of the XX century. E. A. Khvostova was engaged in collecting charitable funds for the opening of a shelter located at the Second Nizhny Novgorod provincial prison, providing assistance to unhappy children. An important result of her work was the appearance of such a shelter with an elementary school, a children’s library, and craft workshops.