What happens when somebody else has the institutional power to decide what kind of woman you are—and the power to punish you when you refuse to obey?

In 1898, Omaha police arrested twenty-two-year-old Goldie Williams for vagrancy and photographed her as prisoner 228. She stood before the camera in hoop earrings and an extravagant feathered hat, her arms folded across her chest and an expression people are still trying to interpret more than a century later.

A few years earlier in Georgia, Mattie Crawford had entered an even harsher machinery of American law. Convicted of killing a stepfather she said had abused her, Mattie was sentenced to life and sent into Georgia’s convict labor system. At the Chattahoochee brickyard, guards forced her out of her skirts and into trousers for blacksmithing work, reportedly whipping her until she complied. Then Mattie became very good at the work.

By 1903, she was the sole blacksmith at Georgia’s state prison farm, a trusty whose skill had become known beyond the prison grounds. And when officials finally told her she could put her dresses back on, Mattie Crawford refused

.In this audio, we follow Goldie and Mattie into a largely forgotten history of African American women, vagrancy laws, convict leasing, forced prison labor, race and gender in the post-emancipation United States. Their experiences were different, and we keep them that way. 

Together, their surviving records leave us with a question that reaches beyond either woman’s life: What happens when somebody else has the institutional power to decide what kind of woman you are—and the power to punish you when you refuse to obey?

They Made Her Wear Trousers. Then Mattie Crawford Refused (audio ep) - WE Survive Abuse

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We Survive Abuse is an independent, survivor-centered podcast that speaks about trauma, recovery, and boundaries in plain, unvarnished language. We reject confusing corporate scripts, ideological jargon, and diluted terms that obscure reality. Healing requires truth, and truth requires clarity.

Grounded in reality, material evidence, and the lived experiences of women and Survivors, this show offers a space where things are called what they are—so you can reclaim your voice, your boundaries, and your story.