Established in 1873, the Indiana Women's Prison was not only the United States' first separate institution for female prisoners, but was also the first maximum-security female correctional facility in the nation. Formerly, female felons had been detained at the Indiana State Prison, located first in Jeffersonville and later in Clarksville. When Quaker prison reformers Rhoda Coffin and Sarah J. Smith learned of the abuses suffered by women prisoners at the hands of the male guards, they lobbied for an end to sexual abuse of women in state prisons. Soon after, Ellen Cheney Johnson facilitated the opening of the Dedham Asylum for Discharged Female Prisoners in Massachusetts. In 1869, their bill for a "Female Prison and Reformatory Institution for Girls and Women" passed the state legislature and served as a precedent to prison reformers across the country.