Rebecca Salome Foster

Rebecca Salome Elliott Foster (October 24, 1848 - February 22, 1902) was an American woman from Alabama known as a City Missionary and prison relief worker in New York City. She became known as the "Tombs Angel" because of her ministry to suspects held before trial at The New York Halls of Justice and House of Detention (otherwise known as "The Tombs"). She expanded her work to include guidance, small financial support, job-seeking assistance, and other aid to newly released prisoners in an attempt to help them transition to the outside world. Foster's work predated most modern-day probation systems, including both the New York State Probation Commission (est. 1907) and the New York City Department of Probation.

Biography She was born as Rebecca Salome Elliott on October 24, 1848, in Alabama, the daughter of planter John Howard Elliott and his wife Margaret Adele (née Blue). Her parents likely moved to New York before or during the war, perhaps having been one of those planter families who had close ties with people in the city through business.

During the last year of the Civil War, at the age of 19 Rebecca Elliot married Union colonel and attorney John Armstrong Foster (March 5, 1833 – February 11, 1890)

The newly married couple lived in New York City. In later life, John Foster suffered from alcoholism, lost his friends, and abandoned his family in 1888. Foster initially supported herself and her daughters from her pay working for the Presbyterian City Mission Society of New York. After John Foster abandoned the family, she wore the black mourning clothes of a widow when in public.

Foster eventually worked on her own as a volunteer with prisoners in the "Tombs". Besides ministering to the needs of the incarcerated pending trial, she had gained considerable respect from government officials. She acted as an unofficial court investigator and advisor, trying to ascertain the facts of each inmate's case and giving her judgment as to whether the person was innocent or guilty of charges. She also worked to support former prisoners in their lives after they were released, taking a role as a kind of ad hoc "probation officer" well before that formal system was established in New York in 1901.

After her death, leaders of the City Club initiated a campaign to commission a monument to honor her. Leading judges and President Theodore Roosevelt joined the fundraising effort. The sculptor Karl Bitter was commissioned to create a marble monument to Foster. It is a bas-relief, featuring her and a prisoner. It also had a medallion portrait of her, and a bronze frame by Charles Rollinson Lamb. The work was installed in 1904 at the old Criminal Courts building. It was removed to storage in 1940 when the building was being demolished for replacement.

The monument was rediscovered in the 21st century, and restored, although the medallion and bronze frame had been lost ( or stolen) through the decades. It was rededicated on June 25, 2019, when it was installed in the lobby of the New York Supreme Court located at 60 Centre Street in Manhattan. Its restoration and dedication are part of an effort the city is making to recognize women whose contributions have not been formally memorialized.