Elizabeth Fry used her influence to visit female prisoners in London’s Newgate Prison. She set up classes to give women job skills, rallied others to provide clothing, and, at the center of her plan, leading women in studying the Bible. Until her death at age 65, Fry worked tirelessly for prison reform—fundamentally changing how women prisoners were viewed and treated. | Museum of the Bible

In the early 1800s, the horrific conditions and brutality of the English prison system was taken for granted—with the conditions ignored! Elizabeth Fry was determined to do something about it. She was a Quaker, and was passionate about reading the Bible herself, and making the Bible accessible to those in need. The daughter of a prominent banking family and the wife of a successful tea dealer, she used her influence to visit female prisoners in London’s Newgate Prison—where she discovered appall