Los Angeles Police Department's second policewoman, Minnie Barton, befriended
several homeless girls while working with young women on parole or probation.
Often these girls had nowhere else to go and no prospects for the future, so
she attempted to help them rebuild their lives by taking them into her home and
offering them vocational training.
In 1917, Barton and the wife of L.A. Police Chief John
Butler met with prominent local women at the downtown Broadway department store
to form the Big Sister League an establish the Minnie Barton Home. In those
early years, Barton and her supporters were primarily interested in women just
released from jail. Often younger women, particularly first offenders, were
committed to the Barton Home in lieu of jail sentences.
In 1926, this temporary
facility became the Bide-a-Wee Home for pregnant and unwed or forsaken women,
often left destitute as a result of the father's jail confinement or
abandonment. The Home has since expanded and is now known as The Big Sister
League, a United Way agency.
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