No less a critic than Charles Dickens was appalled by the way New York in the 19th century housed its prisoners in the dank, overcrowded and smelly precincts of “the Tombs,” the city jail in lower Manhattan.

“Such indecent and disgusting dungeons as these cells, would bring disgrace upon the most despotic empire in the world!,” he wrote in 1842.

Yet into that dark world walked every day a woman who brought the inmates care, compassion and practical help. For these efforts, Rebecca Salome Foster, a volunteer who dedicated herself to humanitarian work after the death of her husband, came to be known as the “Tombs Angel.”

A sympathetic ear, a zeal to investigate their cases and a willingness to plead their cause with judges were among the blessings she brought to the prisoners, many of them poor, none of them yet convicted of the crimes with which they were charged.