Caroline Woods: 5 books

BERLIN, 1931: Sisters raised in a Catholic orphanage, Berni and Grete Metzger are each other's whole world. That is, until life propels them to opposite sides of seedy, splendid, and violent Weimar Berlin. Berni becomes a cigarette girl, a denizen of the cabaret scene alongside her transgender best...

In the preface to the fascinating volume Woman in Prison, author Caroline H. Adams explains the chance encounter with a classified advertisement that changed the course of her life. It was a help-wanted ad soliciting applicants for the role of prison matron, a type of female warden who oversees the logistical...

Tale of a woman in prison at the turn of the last century.

While I was waiting, that advertisement returned to my reflections, and urged its cause imperatively as a command. It was a call, to me, resistless as the voice that awoke the young Israelitish Prophet from his slumbers. In another moment the struggle with my pride was over, and my spirit answered,—I...

I was reading an evening paper. I glanced over the advertisements. One attracted my attention, and held it so strongly that I read it over and over, again and again. There was nothing unusual in it to ordinary observation. It read, "Wanted.—At the Penitentiary, a Matron. Inquire at the Institution."...