The first convicted child abuser was female

Article here. Excerpt:

'Mary Ellen was born in Hell’s Kitchen, NY, in March of 1864. Her father died soon after and her mother, Frances Wilson, had to seek child care arrangements. She left Mary Ellen with a family and gave them a stipend for Mary Ellen’s care. But eventually, Frances stopped visiting her daughter, the money stopped, and the family turned Mary Ellen over to the state orphanage.

She was eventually placed in a foster home with two parents, one of whom died soon after. The foster mom remarried a man named Francis Connolly and became Mrs. Mary Connolly. Shortly thereafter, they moved to 41st Street in New York. Neighbors became concerned because they thought Mary Ellen was being abused. They asked Methodist missionary Etta Angell Wheeler to check on her under the pretense of welcoming them into the neighborhood and to ask them to check on a bedridden neighbor from time to time.

What she saw in that house on that day would change the course of history and save hundreds of lives of little kids. Mary Ellen Wilson had been beaten over and over again, forced to do hard labor, was malnourished, and underdressed for the cold New York winter. She was nine years old. Aside from being stabbed in the head by her foster mother with a pair of scissors, she had no bed and was whipped and beaten on a daily basis.

Etta Wheeler reported all this to the police but at the time there were no laws against child abuse, and so the police took no action. In desperation, she sought out Henry Bergh and described the problem. Together, they talked to neighbors who agreed to give testimony to the police in an effort to get the police to remove Mary Ellen from the house. It worked, and the foster mother was arrested and went to trial. But it was a long shot since she hadn’t broken any laws.
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Upon Connolly’s conviction, Mary Ellen was taken in and eventually adopted by the Methodist missionary, Etta Angell Wheeler.'