Mary Carpenter, known as a great correctional/alternative educator, institutional founder/manager, prison reformer, writer, and advocate for women’s emancipation, was born in 1807 and lived in England. Mary Carpenter entered correctional education in a very roundabout way. She was concerned for poor and deprived children, which led her to the importance of training programs and education, followed by reform in related issues including slavery, women’s rights, and prisons and correctional education. She was influential in a great international, social activist movement, and her work helped usher in what became the North American correctional education paradigm. This article focuses not only on her life, but on her work and accomplishments, specifically her impact on correctional education. The article begins with her establishment in 1846 of ragged schools which extended literacy to the poor, to help them read the Bible. It continues with her early involvement in international reforms to reduce delinquency and recidivism and her early impact on British policy. Carpenter’s expanded presence on the international scene included the countries of Italy, India, England, and North America. The article concludes with selections from Mary Carpenter’s writings on the links between correctional and alternative education and on the relationship between leadership, personality, and reform. Carpenter’s savvy intervention changed practitioner aspirations for student learning. References