The Beginning Of Children’s Rights

“My name is Mary Ellen McCormack. I don’t know how old I am. . . . Mamma has been in the habit of whipping and beating me almost every day. . . .” Mary Ellen was speaking in a Manhattan courtroom in 1874. She was the first abused child ever to do so, and her testimony outraged an unsentimental city. But as the death of Lisa Steinberg demonstrated to the nation, the work that began with the trial of Mary Ellen’s mother is far from done.