power and influence. Juvenile Justice As early as 1898, at the third Annual Illinois Conference on Charities, organized by the philanthropist Lucy Flower and Julia Lathrop, reformers called for a separate system of courts for children. Lathrop's experience at the Hull House and as a Charities Board member had given her firsthand knowledge of the conditions for children in county poorhouses and jails. Prior to the reform era, children over the age of seven were imprisoned with adults. Lathrop helped found the country's first juvenile court in 1899, and the Chicago Woman's Club established the Juvenile Court Committee (electing Lathrop as its first president in 1903) to pay the salaries of fifteen probation officers and run a detention home located at 625 West Adams Street. By 1904, Julia Lathrop helped organize and then became the president of the Juvenile Psychopathic Institute. The director was psychologist William A. Healy who led scientific studies of the physical and mental health of the children, shifting away from the belief that environment alone was responsible for a child's delinquent behavior. Together with members of the National Congress of Mothers Lathrop worked to organize a juvenile court movement nationally with justice law reformers such as Judge Ben Lindsey (who later chaired the National Conference of Charities and Correction's juvenile court subcommittee). Later life In 1918, President Woodrow Wilson sent Lathrop and Grace Abbott to represent the U.S. at an international conference on child welfare. There Lathrop consulted on the formation of a childcare bureau in the newly formed country of Czechoslovakia. After her retirement from the Children's Bureau in 1922, Lathrop became president of the Illinois League of Women Voters. She also helped form the National Committee of Mental Illness. In 1925 Lathrop represented the U.S. in Switzerland at the Child Welfare Committee established by the League of Nations. Honours Academic There is a residence hall at Rockford University and an elementary school in Rockford named after Lathrop. An intermediate school in Santa Ana, California also bears her name. Although a residence hall at Vassar College is named for Dr. Edward Lathrop, a charter trustee, he was not Julia's father. Julia's father was William Lathrop, a lawyer and (briefly) a congressman, from Rockford, IL. In 1938, the Chicago Housing Authority opened the Julia C. Lathrop Homes, a public housing project in the North Center neighborhood on Chicago's north side. Foreign honours : Officer of the