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Punishment, Prisons, and Patriarchy Liberty and Power in the Early American Republic

Mark E. Kann

n N E W Y O R K U N I V E R S I T Y P R E S S

New York and London

N E W Y O R K U N I V E R S I T Y P R E S S N e w York and London www.nyupress.org

© 2 0 0 5 by N e w York University All rights reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Kann, M a r k E. Punishment, prisons, and patriarchy : liberty and power in the early American republic / M a r k E. Kann, p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-10: 0 - 8 1 4 7 ^ 7 8 3 - 3 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN-13: 9 7 8 - 0 - 8 1 4 7 - 4 7 8 3 ^ (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Punishment—United States—History. 2. Prisons—United States—History. I. Title. H V 9 4 6 6 . K 3 6 2 0 0 5 3 6 4 . 6 ' 0 9 7 3 ' 0 9 0 3 3 — d c 2 2 2 0 0 5 0 0 7 2 7 8

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M a n u f a c t u r e d in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

6

Penitentiary Punishment

Reformers proposed replacing traditional punishments with incarceration in penitentiaries. They contended that substantial inmate time in controlled penal environments could be used to calm excessive passions, neutralize malignant influences, break bad habits and reinforce good ones, instill positive values, and teach skills that would be crucial once convicts were set free. They wanted the brutality associated with tra- ditional jails to be eliminated in favor of humanitarian, therapeutic reha- bilitation regimens that would be more moderate than traditional pun- ishments but also more invasive. Ideally, solitary confinement and hard labor along with moral and religious instruction would encumber con- victs' inner selves and outward conduct so that they could be trusted to resume their place in free society. Penitentiary punishment involved the application of patriarchal political power to strip men of their liberty and then to punish, discipline, rehabilitate, and restore them to free society and citizenship.

Rehabilitation

Penal reformers portrayed incarceration as an effort to defend and extend liberty. New York's Society for the Prevention of Pauperism declared that "the safety of life and property, the enjoyment of personal liberty, the blessing of social intercourse, and the strength and stability of govern- ments themselves" could be secured solely by regulations "which coerce the refractory and operate as dissuasives from the indulgence of passions hostile to the general good." Specifically, citizen liberty was safeguarded when convicts were stripped of liberty and imprisoned. Reformers did not dwell on convicts' loss of liberty. On the one hand, liberty denied was "re- pulsive to the mind," which made it an effective deterrent, especially for

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Penitentiary Punishment I 131

"the idle, the needy, and the profligate" who might commit crimes to gain access to prison shelter and food. On the other hand, convicts were to be denied liberty today so that they could be rehabilitated and restored to liberty tomorrow. New Hampshire and Illinois laws explicitly affirmed that convict rehabilitation and restoration to liberty was a governmental obligation and goal.1

Penal activists emphasized that rehabilitation and deterrence legit- imized convict incarceration in penitentiaries. Livingston put it this way:

Reformation of the criminal may reasonably be expected. He is effectu- ally restrained f r o m a repetition of his crime. A permanent and striking example is constantly operating to deter others. The punishment being mild, public feeling will never enlist the passions of the people in opposi- tion to the law. The same cause will ensure a rigid performance of their duty by public officers. Jurors, f r o m a false compassion, will seldom ac- quit the guilty; and if by chance or prejudice they should convict the in- nocent, their error or fault is not as in the cases of infliction of stripes— permanent stigmas or death—without the reach of redress. These are ad- vantages which render the penitentiary system decidedly superior to any other." 2

Penitentiary punishment promised the protection of citizen liberty, restoration of rehabilitated convicts to liberty, and deterrence of future crimes.

In the 1780s, Pennsylvania reformers persuaded state legislators to re- duce the number of capital crimes, eliminate most corporal punishments, and make imprisonment at hard labor the predominant punishment for serious crimes. Officials converted Philadelphia's city jail into the nation's first penitentiary, the Walnut Street Prison. According to William Brad- ford, its main goal was "prevention of crimes." Prevention meant keep- ing convicts from committing more crimes by incarcerating them; ending their criminality by rehabilitating and restoring them to liberty; and de- terring people from breaking laws by publicizing examples of remorseful felons. With penitentiary punishment focused on prevention, reformers felt, crime rates would fall significantly. One reformer reported that Wal- nut Street Prison discipline did indeed result in "a rapid and before un- heard of decrease" in crime.3

After visiting the Walnut Street facility in the 1790s, the Due de la Rochefoucauld-Liancourt noted that "amendment," or "correction of

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the guilty," was the penitentiary's main goal. Charles Bulfinch, an archi- tect who studied prison reform and designed penitentiaries, was con- vinced by the Walnut Street Prison experience that convicts were likely to consent "to the punishment which the law may direct" when they were assured that the punishment was inflicted on them "with the hope of ef- fecting their reformation." Consent was important. It helped to legitimize the convict's loss of liberty as well as ensure the convict's cooperation in the rehabilitation process.4

Religious commentators believed that divine justice authorized peni- tentiary punishment. John Reynolds saw "sinfulness and depravity of man" as the source of crime and penitentiaries that adopted "a mild and salutary process to reform the sons of guilt and crime" as a solution. Bishop William White promoted penitentiaries as products of " the benign and salutary influences of Christianity." Quaker Thomas Eddy claimed that Christianity taught men to "love your enemies" as well as to help convicts seek penitence and find grace. Penitentiaries were houses of pen- itence that prepared men to receive God's grace. Many reformers believed in men's inner goodness. Robert Turnbull wrote, for example, "We know that there are in every man, even the most hardened offenders, some few sparks of honor, a certain consciousness of the intrinsic beauty of moral goodness, which though they may be latent and apparently extinguished, yet may at any time be kindled and roused into action by the application of a proper stimulus." Reynolds agreed that "fallen as a brother may be from the moralities which at one time adorned him, the manifested good- will of his fellow man still carries a charm and an influence along with it. " 5

For religious reformers, penitentiaries aimed at "the actual saving of the criminal's soul" by "religious and spiritual conversion."6

Other reformers claimed that penitentiary punishment was legitimate because it enabled officials to proportion punishments to crimes. New Hampshire's constitution stated, "All penalties ought to be proportioned to the nature of the offense." Lesser crimes would draw short sentences; heinous crimes called for long-term incarceration. Bradford added that harshness of prison conditions should be adjusted to the gravity of par- ticular misdeeds. The "more atrocious offenders" might be required to live in narrow cells, subsist on "coarse fare," languish in "solitude," and suffer "tedious days and long nights in feverish anxiety." Penitentiary punishments were to be "severe" for the very worst convicts. However, when severity approached cruelty, officials needed to remember that the goal was "reforming the criminal," not avenging the crime.7

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Part of the reformer case for penitentiary punishment was that it could help to indemnify victims and taxpayers. Prisoners were to engage in hard labor, which provided them the wherewithal to pay "reparation to party injured" and to reimburse the public "for the expense incurred by their apprehension, trial, and confinement." All reformers wanted peniten- tiaries to be economically self-sufficient, if not profitable. However, they tended to be more comfortable using the language of rehabilitation than the idiom of the marketplace, and they usually emphasized what they saw as a close connection between hard labor and rehabilitation.8

Englishman William Roscoe explored another advantage of peniten- tiaries. Like Bentham, he argued that punishment added pain to the world; this pain could be justified only if a "beneficial alteration" was ef- fected; and the desired beneficial alteration was rehabilitation. He con- cluded, "Punishment, strictly speaking, is therefore only allowable as a medium of reformation, to reclaim the offender and secure society from further injury." American reformers agreed that incarceration should be tied to rehabilitation, which contributed to the public good. Pennsylva- nia's 1786 penal law was premised on the idea that every good govern- ment wishes "to reclaim rather than to destroy" offenders. Rehabilitated criminals became "serviceable members of the community." Peniten- tiaries produced rehabilitated souls, each one becoming "an improved and useful individual" and "a renovated man," if not a "model citizen."9

Some reformers coupled rehabilitation to images of suffering. Mild treatment of prisoners inflicted "no evil greater than was required" but had little deterrent value. However, penitentiaries could appear to be sites of terror if officials dramatized the suffering entailed by imprisonment, prolonged solitude, and hard labor. Livingston wanted to wrap peniten- tiaries in a mantle of mystery. They were to be closed to visitors. Public ignorance would invite people to imagine "all those horrors by which mystery always aggravates apprehended evils." Other reformers worried that word of mild treatment would leak out and spoil the mystery. To make "the strongest impression upon the public mind," Samuel Hopkins told the New York State Senate, prison inmates had to suffer sufficiently to "excite feelings of terror" among the public. Hopefully, inmate suffer- ing would inspire "a salutary horror of the consequences of criminality." Vermont lawyer Daniel Chapman wanted penitentiary punishment to be felt and seen as equivalent to "an ignominious death upon the scaffold."10

Early penal reformers were remarkably optimistic. They were con- vinced that most convicts could be reclaimed by letting "the moral sense

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be awakened and a moral influence be established in the minds of the im- provident, the unfortunate, and the depraved." After all, "The pulse of spiritual or moral health is still beating in all those guilty souls and proper attention would soon restore them to its blissful enjoyment." With soul searching, religious conversions, and secular breakthroughs, "a great ma- jority could be redeemed from guilt and restored to society." A 1798 let- t e r t o Philadelphia Monthly Magazine a m p l i f i e d o p t i m i s m w i t h t h e c l a i m that, under proper penal conditions, "the most hardened convict will nat- urally admit contrition and embrace reformation." Optimism was espe- cially strong among those reformers seeking to tame young men's "wild impulses and passions" and prevent crimes arising from "a frenzy of de- sire." Young males committed most crimes of passion. By imprisoning them for a few years, they could be controlled until their hot passions cooled. Penitentiary time was male maturation time.11

What counted as rehabilitation was disputed. Some reformers equated it with a change of heart and soul as well as behavior. Advocates of "the Pennsylvania system" argued that penitentiaries should "remedy all the neglects of early education; correct idle and depraved habits contracted in after life; give to hard labor the solace and support of a firm conviction of its reasonableness and a just appreciation of the benefits accompany- ing its steady pursuit; and to religion its character of genial heat and light, designed . . . to illuminate, to warm and to cheer us through life, and to light us up a path to heaven."12 The goal was what Foucault calls "spiri- tual conversion." Most reformers favored "the Auburn system," which focused on disciplining outward behavior. Warden Elam Lynds drew on his military background to equate rehabilitation with regimentation and discipline. Mark Colvin claims the Auburn system aimed to "break the spirit of the prisoner." Foucault argues that it sought to produce "the obe- dient subject."13 Either way, reformers expected the rehabilitated convict to be restored to a disciplined liberty.

Controlled Penal Environments

Reformers did not want to make convicts worse by forcing them to spend years in filthy, brutal, traditional jails. In the late 1780s and 1790s, the Philadelphia Society to Alleviate the Miseries of Public Prisons pioneered the clean up campaign. In its first Memorial to the state legislature, the society recommended ending public labor and substituting "more private

Penitentiary Punishment I 134

or even solitary labor," a "separation of the sexes" within prison, and "the prohibition of spirituous liquor amongst the criminals."14 These were first steps toward developing a penal system that placed convicts for prolonged periods in controlled penal environments.

Reformers agreed that prisoner rehabilitation took time. Roscoe felt that "reasonable and sufficient time" was needed "for the inculcation of better principles and habits, and the effectual reformation of the of- fender." A Massachusetts commission claimed that sentences of less than three years "cannot give hope of reformation." Thomas Eddy proposed a minimum of "four or five years." Many reformers wanted to lengthen sentences to be able to distinguish real rehabilitation from pretense. Brad- ford explained, "Much time must be allowed [because] it is easy to coun- terfeit contrition." A "sudden conversion" was suspect. Eddy agreed, "Sufficient time should be allowed to discover [the convict's] real dispo- sition, which, on some occasion, at an unguarded moment, will show it- self." Reformers had other reasons for lengthy sentences. Bradford felt that robbers and burglars were the "most incorrigible" criminals. For them, "Reformation, though not impossible, must be the work of much time." Livingston suggested that criminals suffering "habitual depravity" needed "long discipline to amend." Indeed, long prison terms were a sign of progress. The very worst felons were those who escaped the scaffold to receive long sentences. They needed to endure "a very long and uninter- rupted curative process" and then provide "unequivocal evidence of re- formation after a very long probationary period without relapse" to be set free. Their long sentences demonstrated that there was still hope for the most hopeless wrongdoers.15

Rehabilitation required more than time; it also demanded institutional control of all aspects of inmates' lives and environments. Institutional control enabled prison officials to block bad influences and introduce positive ones. Penitentiaries isolated convicts from taverns, theaters, whorehouses, gambling halls, and other sources of corruption. They cut off communication between inmates and abusive, neglectful families. Warden Gershom Powers felt that sequestering inmates from all outsiders forced convicts "to reflection and communion with their own hearts at their meals, in their shops, their solitary cells, and through all the un- varying routine of their labor and rest." Enforced silence also fostered re- habilitation. Criminals who were "free from the sound of a human voice" were free from crude language that inflamed passions and free to feel the "agony and remorse" necessary for penitence. Powers wanted his Auburn

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penitentiary to feel like "the stillness of the tomb." Reformers designed penitentiaries to be desexualized institutions that eliminated "everything calculated to inflame the passions and sharpen the evil propensities of men."16 Males and females were separated; masturbation and sodomy were prohibited; alcohol, tobacco, and other stimulants were banned. Penitentiary personnel were to promote prisoner self-discipline, virtue, and obedience in the service of economic productivity and good citizen- ship. Sean McConville writes, "Prisoners were to become better by being subject to controls on every aspect of daily life: sleeping, eating, working, associating with others, reading—and in religion, dress, and exercise."17

Penitentiary officials were to have sufficient authority to do whatever was necessary to neutralize causes of crime and rehabilitate criminals.

Officials could even control inmates' gender identity. Traditional pun- ishments obliterated masculinity. A New Jersey senator stated, "Degrade a man by an infamous punishment which destroys his personal honor and self-respect and you do all human ingenuity can to make him cowardly." Flogging was "an unmanly punishment" that stripped men of their dig- nity. Myra Glenn notes, "Publicly stripping, spread eagling, and whip- ping a man dramatized his complete and humiliating subservience to an- other individual in much the same way that slaves or domesticated ani- mals were subservient to their respective masters." Flogging "whipped the manhood" out of men. It "degraded and debased" them. It was a "rash and cruel punishment" that destroyed the "spark of manhood." Reformers knew that male criminals were easily typecast as effeminate. They were slaves to untamed desires and faulty reason. They were as "passionate and irrational, ill-informed and ill-educated, easily duped, confined by their parochial knowledge and interests, as the wife was con- fined to the home." The penitentiary's controlled environment afforded officials an opportunity to rebuild inmates' sense of masculinity by restor- ing the "reason, independence, bravery, moderation, productivity, and fiscal responsibility" valued in mature men and good citizens.18

Following John Howard, American reformers advocated respecting convicts' manhood as a basis for their rehabilitation. Rather than expose inmates to public humiliation, Pennsylvania officials shielded them "from the public gaze of visitors" and prevented them from being "objects of cu- riosity, not unlike animals in a menagerie." A reform-minded Georgia su- perintendent refused to usher convicts "to degradation by undue sever- ity"; he tried instead to nurture "that self-respect which is all-important to moral reformation." Manly self-respect was important, Turnbull ex-

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plained, because it enabled prison officials to teach inmates "their relative duties considered as men, moralists, and members of society." Hopefully, prison officials exhibited a paternal calmness and warmth that deterred prisoners "from contracting habits of effeminacy." Officials might en- courage prisoners to engage in paid labor and thereby develop a modicum of independence that would enhance both their manly dignity and their prospects for supporting their families.19

If penitentiary officials failed to promote hegemonic masculinity among inmates, reformers feared, convicts would develop counterhege- monic prison subcultures in which breaking rules, resisting punishment, and defying authority would become markers of manhood. Nevertheless, reformers were not consistent about creating environments that pro- moted republican manhood. When evaluating punishments for disobedi- ent prisoners, they often proposed the emasculation of unruly inmates by way of solitary confinement and whippings—"much as if they were ani- mals in a zoo." Even then, reformers imagined that this emasculation was a prelude to penitence and revived manhood.20

Orientation, Classification, and Individuation

New prisoner orientation was an opportunity for penitentiary officials to give the convict a new identity. The Maryland State Prison required a new prisoner to bathe, don prison clothing, and be shaved on one side of his head, "an operation . . . being partly intended as a punishment but chiefly as a mark by which he may be detected in case of escape." Livingston sug- gested that immediate solitary confinement for two days would put a new inmate on the road to redemption. "On the third day," he wrote, "the chaplain shall visit him in his cell and shall endeavor to impress on his mind as well the wickedness as the danger of vicious and unlawful pur- suits, and he shall exhort him to obedience and industry during the term of his service and urge the utility of acquiring the means of an honest sup- port by labor on his discharge."21 With a clean body, a distinctive ap- pearance, some soul searching, and sound advice, inmates' physical and psychological separation from free society was complete. They were ready for prison discipline.

Pennsylvania reformers supported long-term solitary confinement. They wanted to introduce new inmates to it and motivate them to ask for a Bible and work. Inspectors explained in an 1831 report, "When a con-

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vict first arrives, he is placed in a cell and left alone without work and without any book. His mind can only operate on itself; generally but a few hours elapse before he petitions for something to do and for a Bible. . . . If the prisoner has a trade that can be pursued in his cell, he is put to work as a favor; as a reward for good behavior and as a favor, a Bible is allowed him. If he has no trade or one that cannot be pursued in his cell, he is allowed to choose one that c a n . . . . Work and moral and re- ligious books are regarded and received as favors and are withheld as punishment."22 A major advantage of solitude was that men would seek any distraction to escape ennui. Officials were to provide distractions that contributed to rehabilitation.

New York Warden Gershom Powers spelled out basic reformer themes in his orientation speech to new convicts:

From bad example, idleness, or the indulgence of evil passions, you have been led to the commission of crime, by which you have violated the laws of your country, forfeited your liberty, and offended your God. The consequence is that instead of n o w enjoying the inestimable privileges of a free American citizen . . . you appear in culprit robes, doomed to the gloomy solitude of a prison. . . . Weep not for yourself only but remem- ber the sighs of a father, the tears of a mother, the anguish of a wife and children, suffering and disgraced by your crimes. Cherish n o malevolent feelings against society or the government for arresting you in your ca- reer of criminality but rather be t h a n k f u l for the mildness of our laws; that instead of forfeiting your life on an ignominious gallows as would have been the case under most other governments, you are only re- strained for a time, for the safety of society, and your o w n good; that the most favorable means are afforded for repentance and reformation by forming regular, temperate a n d industrious habits, learning a useful trade, yielding obedience t o laws, subduing evil passions, and by receiv- ing moral and religious instruction. If you will but faithfully improve the opportunities with which you will be thus favored, your case is far f r o m being hopeless; your sufferings during confinement will be greatly miti- gated; you will return to your friends and to society with correct views and good resolutions, and then friends and society will receive you again with open arms and, like the compassionate father to his prodigal son, will say of you, "he was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is f o u n d . " 2 3

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Powers promoted three reformer themes. First, the criminal was not in- herently evil; he was moved to crime by untamed passions and external influences. The result was a painful loss of liberty, family, and society. Sec- ond, the criminal was fortunate that he was entering an American peni- tentiary. Rather than face the gallows, he had an opportunity to rehabil- itate himself. Third, the road to rehabilitation was clear, the chances for it were promising, and the rewards were great. It was now the convict's responsibility to put away the past to secure the blessings of future lib- erty.

Most reformers opposed total solitary confinement and nearly all pen- itentiaries required inmates to eat and work together. They devised ways to minimize any mutual contamination that might occur when prisoners congregated. Boston reformers claimed, "It would be better if prisons were so constructed that there could be a perfect separation, at least by night; but till they are so constructed, it is necessary that there should be classification." Preferred principles of classification required the separa- tion of "males and females, old and young, condemned and uncon- demned, blacks and whites, debtors and criminals." Men and women had to be separated to calm the passions that fostered crime. Young offenders were to be insulated from seasoned criminals. Pennsylvania's 1786 penal law directed that "the old and hardened offenders be prevented from mixing with and thereby contaminating and eradicating the remaining seeds of virtue and goodness in the young and unwary." Most reformers urged racial separation too. Boston activists asserted that "propriety" de- manded the separation of white and black prisoners. A Virginia report observed that white inmates came from the "lowest part of society" but "free Negroes and mulattos are a grade or so below them and should not be associated with them." For a few years, Virginia experimented with selling black felons into slavery rather than housing them with white in- mates.24

Once new prisoners were oriented, classified, and separated, reformers recommended that officials develop an individualized treatment program for each inmate. Roscoe wrote that "measures must be adopted as are suitable to the peculiar situation, disposition, and feelings" of each pris- oner, with "variations of lenity and severity as . . . suit the circumstances of the case." Officials were to inquire "into the character, temper, and moral constitution of the individual . . . to adopt such measures for his improvement as may be best adapted to the case. If he be ignorant, we

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must instruct him; if he be obstinate and arrogant, we must humiliate him; if he be indolent, we must rouse him; if he be desponding, we must encourage him." Turnbull wanted prison officials to consider an individ- ual's conduct prior to sentencing, the nature and circumstances of his crime, and his behavior in court to determine his "character and disposi- tion" and "the degree of care which may be requisite for the annihilation of his former bad habits." Inmates were to be rehabilitated one criminal at a time.25

Calls for individuation were partly based on recognition that discipline affected each prisoner differently. Boston's Prison Discipline Society sug- gested that fifteen days of solitary confinement was as painful to a con- vict habituated to comfort as six months' solitary confinement was to a soldier inured to hardship. A sociable man would find solitary confine- ment to be "a terrible punishment" but a stupid, ignorant, and carnal man would not mind it. Reformers also sought individuation in granting pardons. Eddy called on officials to assess each convict's degree of de- pravity, suffering, and decency as well as his record of industry, sobriety, and obedience. Inspectors would see "whether from what is known of his temper, character, and deportment, it is probable that if restored to soci- ety he will become a peaceable, honest, and industrious citizen. "2 6 Pun- ishments were to be proportioned to crimes but individual traits would warrant adjustments in the nature and duration of punishments.

A variation on individuation was to peg punishments to categories of criminals. Livingston lumped together men convicted of property crimes. For them, "The natural corrective is to deprive the offender of the grati- fications he expects and to convince him that they can be acquired by the exertions of industry." Thieves might be required to perform hard labor with pay to develop the habit of industry and connect labor to its re- wards. Criminals whose misdeeds were motivated by the "indulgence of the bad passions" would be punished differently. Daniel Raymond wanted punishments pegged to social standing: "Different classes of so- ciety are to be operated upon and deterred from violating the law by those kinds of punishments which they most dread." Upper-class offend- ers had a high regard for reputation; they should be punished by "dis- grace." Lower-class criminals were not concerned with reputation; the most effective punishment for them was "the infliction of corporal suf- fering."27 Overall, the discourse on orientation, classification, and indi- viduation presumed that the state had nearly unlimited power over in- mates. Reformers' willingness to tolerate intrusive state authority was es-

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pecially clear in their consensus that officials could deny prisoners all human contact.

Enforced Solitude

Reformers persuaded several state legislatures to make solitary confine- ment a standard segment of prison time (usually one-half to one-twelfth the total sentence). Most penal activists supported isolating prisoners only at night and enforcing silence among them by day. Some recom- mended solitary confinement for entire sentences. Solitude was desirable for several reasons. First, it inspired fear. The whip inflicted temporary pain but solitude caused "terror." Second, solitude subdued prisoners without debasing them. It was a humane way to exact obedience. Third, solitude eliminated contamination born of social intercourse and thereby invited remorse. Crawford explained, "Day after day, with no compan- ions but his thoughts, the convict is compelled to reflect and listen to the reproofs of conscience. He is led to dwell upon past errors and to cherish whatever better feelings he may at any time have imbibed." Finally, soli- tude prevented inmates from committing crimes such as extortion and as- sault within prison.28

Reformers portrayed solitude as a stinging punishment. "Left to him- self," wrote James Mease, "his own reflections will be melancholy and depressing." Nighttime solitude was "the severest of all punishments" be- cause it shut out external stimuli that eased boredom and guilt. Reform- ers used terrifying images of solitude to persuade legislators and taxpay- ers that convicts were severely punished in prisons. Even short periods of solitude "in the narrow limits of a solitary cell" were more harrowing than long sentences in institutions where inmates could socialize. Mease wrote, "The mere presence of numbers and the bustle of the world going on are sources of gratification." Livingston agreed that punishment was compromised wherever inmates could "enjoy society." Some reformers claimed that solitary confinement was as severe a punishment as hanging and whipping. A 1788 Pennsylvania Mercury article reported that a con- demned man considered solitude "infinitely worse than the most agoniz- ing death." Even critics of long-term solitude recognized that its terrors could be useful. Warden Gershom Powers wrote, "There is no doubt that uninterrupted solitude tends to sour the feelings, destroy the affections, harden the heart, and induce men to cultivate a spirit of revenge, or drive

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them to despair. [Yet] a degree of mental anguish and distress may be nec- essary to humble and reform an offender." Nearly all reformers promoted some solitude as a humanitarian but harsh alternative to traditional pun- ishments.29 Ignatieff notes that reformers were drawn to it as "a punish- ment so rational that offenders would punish themselves in the soundless, silent anguish of their own minds."30

Officials often used solitary punishment as a common means to disci- pline disorderly inmates. Caleb Lownes, an inspector at the Walnut Street Prison, related this success story:

One instance has occurred of refusal to work, which was soon remedied by a separation of the criminal from the orderly prisoners and confining him in solitary cells where he remained some weeks without labor, bed, or furniture. . . . In this cheerless habitation, he spent many anxious hours confined to the reflections inseparable from guilty minds—he was ignorant how long his present situation was to continue—he was with- out employment—nothing to amuse him—in a state of suspense and un- certainty when the hour would arrive that was to restore him, or how he should atone for his offence; he made many protestations and used many means to obtain a friend. The object being obtained for which he was separated from the rest, he was restored. The utmost propriety of conduct has been observed by this man ever since.31

Turnbull's visit to the Walnut Street Prison confirmed the effectiveness of solitary confinement: "A prisoner was seldom known to continue long in a [solitary] cell before he . . . would willingly have returned to that regu- larity of conduct and industry which his misguided folly had induced him to depart from. Several of the most hardened and audacious criminals [were] transformed into such a calmness of disposition as to have become entirely new beings and the least troublesome afterwards among the pris- oners." Years later, Beaumont and Tocqueville observed the same phe- nomenon. They wrote about a disobedient prisoner who was sent to soli- tary confinement only to experience "the pains of a stinging conscience." He fell into "a dejection of mind" and sought relief by asking permission to labor. The result was that "he is tamed and forever submissive to the rules of the prison."32

Roberts Vaux considered enforced solitude more than a disciplinary measure. It also promised "the recovery of the novice in transgression." Following the Quaker belief that solitude invited individuals to hear and

Penitentiary Punishment I 142

heed their inner voice, a number of reformers identified solitude as the seminal source of rehabilitation. Solitude summoned "a friendly commu- nication with the heart" and amplified "the dictates prescribed to us by our consciences." In time, solitude "eradicated every relic of vice which might be lurking in the inner recesses of the mind." It forced the convict to contemplate his "forlorn condition," see "the wickedness and folly" of his life, and open up to "future amendment." Some reformers emphasized the link between solitude and salvation. Virginian George Keith Taylor noted that, in solitude, the convict's mind became "a sentimental hell where pangs the most exquisite rack his soul." He would "implore the pardon of Heaven and resolve on the reformation of conduct." Vaux re- ported one solitary journey from depravity to penitence as follows:

A young offender was committed to a cell and left to his own reflections. Unknown to the keeper, he had a pencil in his possession with which he wrote and drew upon the wall. He commenced with exhibiting indecent objects and recording scraps of lewd songs. . . . In process of time, as if he had become gradually and deeply sensible of his own condition, he represented a ship driven by the fury of a storm and perishing under its effects. Finally he drew a vessel gliding with easy sail into her desired haven, near which he placed these memorable words of the Redeemer: "Come unto me all ye that labor, and are heavy ladened, and I will give you rest." This individual was in due time released from confinement, reformed, and became a respectable character.33

If enforced solitude was painful, it was also a source of individual reha- bilitation and spiritual regeneration. Solitary confinement was a gateway to goodness.

Reformers enumerated three other advantages to enforced solitude. First, it separated inmates from one another as well as from family and friends. Convicts were "dead as far as it respects the world" and their civic death enabled officials to control fully the penal environment. Sec- ond, enforced solitude was a quick fix for young, inexperienced criminals. Eddy recommended solitude for up to thirty days for "vagrants, drunk- ards, riotous and disorderly persons" and for up to ninety days for men convicted of minor crimes, such as petty larceny. This solitary confine- ment would feel "more severe and terrible" than a year or two of hard labor in a state prison. Mease agreed that, in some instances, short-term solitude could have a stronger impact on a man than ten years "passed in

132 I Penitentiary Punishment

the continual society of numerous fellow convicts." Third, enforced soli- tude helped to win convicts' consent to their punishment. Crawford re- ported that prisoners who experienced solitude "acknowledged that the correction was beneficial." Indeed, "Instances have occurred in which prisoners have expressed their gratitude for the moral benefit which they have thus derived." In its 1833 Annual Report, the Pennsylvania Prison Society agreed that the inmate in solitary confinement "is forced to ac- knowledge that his punishment is a just retribution for his past of- fenses."34 In effect, solitude urged inmates to consent retrospectively to surrender their liberty to the state and, with the state's help, to become better men and good citizens.

In 1821, New York officials conducted the most extreme experiment in prisoner solitude. They condemned eight of their worst offenders to in- definite solitude and silence without work. The men's only distraction was a copy of the Bible. After eighteen months, some of the inmates com- mitted suicide and others suffered insanity. By 1823, the experiment was deemed a failure and the governor pardoned the survivors. Rather than abandon enforced solitude, however, reformers sought to ameliorate it. Eddy came to recognize the undue severity of long-term solitude and reckoned that "it is highly probably the health of the convict would be impaired if not destroyed and in many cases it would produce insanity." Severe solitude was inhumane and counterproductive: it hardened the criminal and brutalized his disposition.35 Most reformers, legislators, and prison officials defended the Auburn system whereby prisoners slept in solitude but labored together in silence. Beaumont and Tocqueville ex- plained, "their bodies are together, but their souls are separated." Penn- sylvania reformers, doubtful that solitude caused suicide or insanity, de- signed a penitentiary system in which prisoners spent their entire sen- tences in solitary cells. Isolation was so complete at the state's Eastern Penitentiary that prisoners "were not aware of the existence of the cholera which . . . prevailed in Philadelphia." Relief from solitude was a privilege. Well-behaved prisoners could exercise in isolated courtyards or receive visits from chaplains and inspectors. They also could earn the privilege of performing labor in their cells.36

Penitentiary Punishment I 145

Prison Labor

Reformers portrayed hard labor as a dreaded punishment. For criminals with "habits of indolence and licentiousness," wrote Turnbull, nothing was "more grievous" than constant hard labor. The mere prospect of it brought "terror into the minds of the depraved." Eddy suggested that hard labor produced "a salutary dread." Livingston claimed that all men had a "natural repugnance to labor" (which they had to overcome in order to become good family men and citizens). Adam Jay Hirsch con- nects this stigma against hard labor to its association with slavery. Where men loved liberty, everything identified with slavery was detested.37

Several reformers took the opposite viewpoint. They dwelled on the positive side of hard labor. Roscoe explained that the indolent regarded hard labor with horror but they were mistaken: "They little suspect the pleasure continually springing in the mind of the workman from the va- riety and contrivance with which every stroke is made; from the success with which it is attended; from the consciousness of the power and activ- ity thus employed; and from the exhilarating survey of the task accom- plished." Prison visitors occasionally commented on the "spirit of indus- try" that working inmates exhibited. Mease surmised that inmates' spirit of industry stemmed from the fact that prison labor was not overly de- manding: "The work done by convicts is mere pastime when compared with that of a wood-sawyer or a carpenter on a house-top or a man in a brick-yard in the blazing sun all day with the thermometer at 120 degrees; and the duration of it is less in a day, by many hours, than those pre- scribed by custom for honest mechanics." Mease opposed prison labor, which he saw as a pastime that eased punishment.38 Daniel Raymond also complained that prison labor produced pleasure rather than punishment. He too wanted to prohibit hard labor, which eased "mental suffering, penitence, and reformation." Work engrossed convicts' attention and en- abled them to forget they were in a penitentiary. Inmates' fatigue only en- hanced their appetites and invited sound sleep, "the two greatest com- forts and blessings an uneducated man can hope to enjoy in this world."3 9

Agreeing with this reasoning, Samuel Sparhawk contended that "the mass of our criminals do not view [prison labor] with any great degree of terror."40

Most reformers agreed that rehabilitation required a transformation of prisoners' perception of labor as painful into a belief that labor could be pleasurable and rewarding. Livingston made two widely accepted sug-

132 I Penitentiary Punishment

gestions. First, habit made hard work tolerable. That was why prison of- ficials should cultivate routinized labor. Second, the pains associated with work would be reduced if the prisoner associated laborious efforts with "some enjoyment." Livingston explained that "habit destroys the sense of bodily pain; hope anticipates the reward it is to bring, identifies the en- joyment with the means of procuring it, and by a wise use of the faculties bestowed by our beneficent Creator, labor becomes cheerful and its pain a pleasure." In turn, pleasant labor set a convict on the pathway to manly independence. It counteracted idleness and had a favorable influence on his future freedom. A lazy thief could become a productive family man and citizen. Beaumont and Tocqueville concluded that convicts who learned to enjoy habitual labor soon learned to love labor as "the only means which . . . will enable them to gain honestly their livelihood."41

Work made men free. Most reformers, legislators, and officials assumed that prisoners would

have to be coerced into working. Institutional logistics dictated that they would work side by side in large workshops where they certainly would try to talk to each other. In the Auburn system, prisoners engaged in con- gregate labor but were required to be silent. Officials enforced silence with a whip—which proved controversial. Some critics claimed the whip lacked benevolence. Others considered it counterproductive. With mem- ories of brutal beatings etched into their backs, prisoners would be em- bittered and intent on committing new crimes.42 In the Pennsylvania sys- tem, prisoners lived in solitude. Their greatest enemy was boredom and they sought work to escape boredom. Beaumont and Tocqueville re- ported that Pennsylvania inmates spoke of labor "with a kind of grati- tude." Livingston worked out the psychology of voluntary labor. Men loved action and detested "idleness unbroken by any mental or bodily oc- cupation." Prisoners in solitude would voluntarily seek employment to occupy their minds and exercise their bodies. Should they misbehave, of- ficials could withdraw the privilege of labor. Ultimately, convicts' hatred for idleness and their consent to labor would cause them to associate it with enjoyment and thereby "produce reformation."4 3

Reformers often recommended paying convicts for their prison labor. Pennsylvania followed this recommendation by enacting a 1790 penal law that required officials to set up accounts for prisoners sentenced to hard labor for six months or longer. Prisoners were to be assessed the costs of clothing, maintenance, and raw materials but credited with a share of the proceeds from the sale of manufactured products. When rev-

Penitentiary Punishment I 147

enue outpaced costs, prisoners would receive one-half of the excess at dis- charge. Advocates saw paid labor as a means to promote independence of character, a sense of order and decency, and respect in the eyes of soci- ety. For inmates concerned about their families' welfare, paid prison labor ensured prison discipline. John Reynolds reported that "husbands and children are particularly careful to keep their earnings and . . . send them to their parents and families." Other inmates worked to save enough money to be able to make a decent appearance when they left prison.44

One factor that prompted reformers, legislators, and officials to em- phasize prison labor was that it was a potential source of revenue. Eddy argued that "due management and economy" made it probable that "the profit of the labor of the convicts may be rendered equal to their sup- port." Boston's Prison Discipline Society insisted that, "in every peniten- tiary where hard labor is the business of the convicts, something must be radically wrong if the institution does not at least support itself." Charles Bulfinch based his plans for a Washington, D.C., penitentiary on law- makers' expectation that "the prisoners should be compelled to work to defray a part of the expense of their maintenance."45 Reformers' stated goal was to have prisoners reimburse society for all costs stemming from their crimes. Some inmates railed against prison labor as exploitation, but the greatest challenge to prison labor came from competing free laborers. Beginning in the 1830s, they protested that prison labor was unfair com- petition, they questioned the notion that prisons actually rehabilitated criminals, and they warned that discharged convicts with trade creden- tials would give honest tradesmen a bad name. At an 1834 mechanics convention, one speaker asked if wealthy reformers would like to have "the ex-convict, on his return to society, mingle in the drawing room with their sons and their daughters? And perchance improve his condition by marriage with an heiress of their fortunes?"46

An Education for Liberty

Prison solitude and labor were meant to foster good behavior and build good character, especially among young convicts. They would break bad habits and initiate good ones such as "continual employment, sobriety, cleanliness, and regularity of conduct." Lieber was confident that good habits produced virtue: "Let a former convict but acquire habits of hon-

132 I Penitentiary Punishment

esty and he will also gradually acquire honest views and feelings. Let him obey the just laws of our country and he will soon love them." Several re- formers considered character education superficial unless based on en- lightenment or religion. Livingston opted for enlightenment: "The heart must necessarily be softened and the spirit subdued and the mind pre- pared to receive those great truths, which under such circumstances, may be inculcated to the highest advantage." Most reformers agreed that no system of prison discipline could be effective without some religious in- struction. The most hardened prisoners could be "reclaimed" only "by the power of the Gospel."47

Penitentiary officials usually gave prisoners access to Bibles, public worship, and occasional religious instruction. Reformers preferred for prisons to hire full-time chaplains. Powers wanted a prison chaplain who would "deal plainly with [prisoners] and dwell emphatically upon their deep depravity and guilt in violating the laws of God and their country— convince them of the justice of their sentences—awaken remorse in their consciences—press home upon them their solemn obligations—make them feel, pungently, the horrors of their situations; and, by all other means, make them realize the necessity and duty of repentance, of amend- ment, and of humbleness, and strict obedience to all the regulations of the prison. This course would tend powerfully to make them better convicts; and whenever restored to their liberty, better citizens." Reformers be- lieved that inmates benefited from chaplains who provided them with emotional comfort, consolation, and guidance. For Livingston, the chap- lain's job was "to instruct the prisoners under their care in the duties of religion and morality; to exhort them to repentance and amendment; to show the folly and danger of vice; and to encourage those who are con- fined for a term of years with the hope of being reinstated in the good opinion of the world." Stephen Allen thought a chaplain was crucial for rehabilitation. Convicts detested almost all prison officials as oppressors; chaplains were the sole exception. They alone could gain inmate trust and encourage inmate cooperation in rehabilitation.48

Ideally, a convict developed a good character inside a penitentiary prior to the expiration of his sentence. When that happened, should he be set free or should he serve out his sentence? When seeking pardons, con- victs claimed that they were improved individuals. They argued that their crimes were idiosyncratic and would not recur. Upon release, they would be law-abiding citizens. Successful petitions emphasized convicts' good character and, in the case of women, their feminine virtues. Governors

Penitentiary Punishment I 148

justified pardons as means to prevent the execution of minor criminals, free the penitent, and account for youthfulness, family responsibilities, good character, and community standing.49 The thickest thread tying pe- titions to pardons was the claim of rehabilitation.

Penal reformers agreed that pardons were appropriate for minor, first- time offenders. The possibility of pardon was an incentive to rehabilita- tion. Pennsylvania's 1786 reform law relied on pardons "to encourage those in whom the love of virtue and the shame of vice is not wholly ex- tinguished to set about a sincere and actual repentance and reformation of life and conduct so . . . they may become useful members of society." Inspectors described deserving inmates as "those whose course of life has not been altogether vicious, who are in prison for their first offense and that of a light cast, who have served more than half or nearly all of their sentence, whose conduct in prison has been uniformly exemplary, pris- oners in whose breast the spirit of revenge has not yet found birth, and who feel that as yet, they are not outcasts from society." Reformers added that pardoning penitent inmates would "keep alive in the mind of [other] convicts those hopes and dispositions which are requisite to their amend- ment." The key question was whether it was likely that the pardoned criminal would become "a peaceable, honest, and industrious citizen."50

Some reformers portrayed pardons as a matter of justice. If God par- doned men who repented, it was just for men "to pardon those who have given proof of contrition for their crime."51 Other reformers worried that frequent pardons destroyed the certainty of punishments. Massachusetts commissioners claimed that frequent pardons destroyed "the utility of the penitentiary" because pardons allowed the guilty to "escape with im- punity." This had three bad effects. First, pardons hastened the moment when so-called penitent thieves returned to friends with whom they soon got drunk and committed new crimes. Second, pardons encouraged crim- inals to feign penitence to evade their sentences. Third, the example of pardoned convicts motivated free men with vicious tendencies to overes- timate their chances of committing crimes with impunity. William Craw- ford argued that prisoners could not be reclaimed for honesty, virtue, and industry until the distraction of pardons was eradicated.52

Most penal activists took the middle ground: prisons should retain pardons as incentives to rehabilitation but apply them sparingly. Lieber wanted prisoners to serve a substantial portion of their sentence before being eligible for pardon. This would give officials time to determine if a convict was truly penitent. Lieber also wanted a committee to investigate

150 I Penitentiary Punishment

the history, conduct, and propensities of convicts before they were con- sidered for pardons, which would minimize the likelihood that governors would issue pardons for illegitimate reasons. Mease suggested as a further check on pardoning power that governors be required "to publish the pe- tition of every criminal applying for pardon, together with the names of the signers." He hoped to threaten public humiliation for governors who issued pardons simply because influential people requested them.53

A slim but real possibility of early discharge would help to discipline inmates. Lownes thought that the prospect of a pardon "encourages the prisoners to a propriety of conduct" and "strengthens the hands of the of- ficers." When prisoners believed that their liberty was contingent on their good conduct, they were apt to be good. Massachusetts officials told con- victs in 1815, "If . . . any of you flatter yourselves with the hope of re- ceiving clemency . . . your success will depend upon the correctness of your conduct." Philadelphia inspectors reported to Pennsylvania's gover- nor in 1820, "Hope of pardon [has] been the most powerful guard we have ever had within the walls of our prison and so long as so large a body of men are crowded together in the manner now of necessity prac- ticed, so long will it be necessary to keep up good order by the hope of pardon."5 4 Hope disciplined men.

294 I Notes to Chapter 5

57. Stuart, 2 2 1 - 2 2 ; Reynolds, 207; Daniel Raymond to the Committee, Janu- ary 13, 1821, in Society for the Prevention of Pauperism, Report on the Peniten- tiary System, Appendix 41; Former Congressman Daniel Chapman to the Com- mittee, January 29, 1821, in ibid., Appendix 65; see also Wines, 155.

58. Livingston, 11-12, 154; Ayers, 45. 59. Patrick Colquhoun quoted in Knapp, 194; see also Hirsch, 53, 7 5 - 7 6 , 78. 60. Bradford, 20; Eddy, 9; Lieber, 15; William Roscoe, A Brief Statement of

the Causes Which Have Led to the Abandonment of the Celebrated System of Penitentiary Discipline in Some of the United States of America in a Letter for the Hon. Stephen Allen of New York (Liverpool: Harris and Company, 1827), 4; see also Lewis, Development of American Prisons, 51.

61. Thomas Eddy to William Roscoe, December 15, 1825, in Knapp, 316; see also "Preamble to the Act Passed in 1798 for the Amendment of [Virginia] Penal Laws," in Crawford, Appendix 114; Society for the Prevention of Pauperism, Report on the Penitentiary System, 96; Turnbull, 30; Livingston, 314; Ayers, 41; Glenn, 5 6 - 5 7 , 114.

62. Allen, Observations, 6-7; Powers, Brief Account, 54; Society for the Pre- vention of Pauperism, Report on the Penitentiary System, 58; Beaumont and Tocqueville, 85; see also Foner, 58; Wines, 156-57.

63. Thacher, "A Sermon," in Sandoz, 1142; Powers, Brief Account, 20; see also Meranze, 85.

64. Ignatieff, 167. 65. Bradford, 86; Beaumont and Tocqueville, 131; Turnbull, 3.

N O T E S T O C H A P T E R 6

1. Society for the Prevention of Pauperism, Report... on the Expediency of Erecting an Institution for the Reformation of Juvenile Delinquents, 3; Society for the Prevention of Pauperism, Report on the Penitentiary System, 65; see also Lewis, Development of American Prisons, 51.

2. Livingston, 36. 3. Bradford, 3; Eddy, 50; Livingston, 19; see also "First Report of the Board

of Inspectors of the Prison for the City and County of Philadelphia, in the year 1791," in Teeters, They Were in Prison, 49; Vaux, 4; see also Barnes, 107-10.

4. Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, 9; Charles Bulfinch, Bulfinch on Penitentiaries: Report of Charles Bulfinch on the Subject of Penitentiaries (Washington: Gales and Seaton, 1827), 8; see also "Report of the Board of Directors of the Peniten- tiary in Baltimore," in Reports of the Prison Discipline Society, 2:504.

5. Reynolds, 5 - 6 , 2 0 0 - 2 0 3 , 212; William White quoted in Barnes, 103; Thomas Eddy quoted in Knapp, 158-59; Turnbull, 31; see also "Constitution of the Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons [1787]," in Bradford, Appendix 105; Memorial N o . 9, "A Further Appeal for a New Prison,

Notes to Chapter 6 I 295

December 1827," in Teeters, They Were in Prison, 449; Hirsch, 44; Skotnicki, 39, 42, 4 9 - 5 1 .

6. Lewis, Development of American Prisons, 20, 51. 7. Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, in Writings, 2 7 0 - 7 1 ; "Constitu-

tion of New Hampshire," in Society for the Prevention of Pauperism, Report on the Penitentiary System, Appendix 2; Bradford, 31, 45; Sargeant and Miller, 5 - 6 ; see also Lewis, Development of American Prisons, 121.

8. Eddy, 50; Carey, 2; see also Roscoe, Observations, 60; Lewis, Develop- ment of American Prisons, 22.

9. Roscoe, Observations, 10, 71; 1786 law quoted in Teeters, They Were in Prison, 22; Society for the Alleviation of Miseries in Public Prisons, "Extracts and Remarks on the Subject of Punishment and Reformation of Criminals [1790]," in ibid., 33; Roscoe, Brief Statement, 22; Livingston, 341; Bradford, 7, 33; see also Colvin, 88.

10. Livingston, 305, 329-30; Samuel M. Hopkins "Report of the Committee on the Criminal Law to the New York Senate [1822]," in Society for the Preven- tion of Pauperism, Report on the Penitentiary System, Appendix 99; Daniel Chapman quoted in Lewis, Development of American Prisons, 35; see also Mease, 16-17.

11. Livingston, 114, 308; Society for the Prevention of Pauperism, First An- nual Report, 9 - 1 0 ; Reynolds, 32; Beaumont and Tocqueville, 116-17; Liv- ingston, 329; Roscoe, Observations, 49; "A Lady," quoted in Teeters, Cradle of the Penitentiary, 4 3 - 4 4 ; Bradford, 29; Stuart, 2 1 7 - 1 8 ; Lieber, 19; see also Skot- nicki, 25, 5 0 - 5 1 ; Glenn, 41, 43.

12. Anonymous, Dialogue on the Penitentiary System, 18. 13. Foucault, Discipline and Punish, 122-23, 128-29; Beaumont and Toc-

queville, 87, 89-90; Colvin, 90-91; see also Rothman, "Perfecting the Prison," in Morris and Rothman, 106.

14. Memorial N o . 1, "A Protest against Public Punishments, January 29, 1788," in Teeters, They Were in Prison, 447; see also Teeters, Cradle of the Pen- itentiary, 41.

15. Roscoe, Observations, 108; "Report of the Commissioners to the Legisla- ture of Massachusetts, 1817" in ibid., Appendix 97; Eddy, 6 8 - 6 9 ; Bradford, 23, 4 5 - 4 6 ; Livingston, 25, 145, 336, 342; see also Paul W. Keve, The History of Corrections in Virginia (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1986), 58.

16. Powers, Brief Account, 1 - 2 , 16; Society for the Prevention of Pauperism, Report on the Penitentiary System, 46, 5 8 - 5 9 ; "A View of the New-York State Prison," in Roscoe, Observations, Appendix 40; Eddy, 36; Gershom Powers, Letter of Gershom Powers, Esq. in Answer to a Letter of the Hon. Edward Liv- ingston in Relation to the Auburn State Prison (Albany: Croswell and Van Ben- thuysen, 1829), 16; see also Rothman, Discovery of the Asylum, 82; Lewis, De- velopment of American Prisons, 86, 91.

294 I Notes to Chapter 5

17. Sean McConville, "Local Justice: The Jail," in Morris and Rothman, 276; see also Rothman, Discovery of the Asylum, 83, 105.

18. Senator quoted in Glenn, 44, 118-19; Smith-Rosenberg, 854-56. 19. Crawford, Appendix 2; Colonel Mills quoted in Lewis, Development of

American Prisons, 266; Turnbull, 35; Thacher, "A Sermon," in Sandoz, 1142; Roscoe, Observations, 163-64, 172.

20. Glenn, 116-18; see also Lewis, Development of American Prisons, 220; Lewis, From Newgate to Dannemora, 92; Hindus, 171.

21. Crawford, Appendix 95; Livingston, 708. 22. "Report of the Inspectors, submitted to the Legislature on January 1,

1831," quoted in Barnes, 159-60. 23. Powers, Letter of Gershom Powers, 13-14. 24. Reports of the Prison Discipline Society, 1:11-12; "Report of the Com-

missioners to the Legislature of Massachusetts," in Roscoe, Observations, Ap- pendix 87; "Rules, Orders, and Regulations for the Gaol of the City and County of Philadelphia [1792]," in Bradford, Appendix 101; Memorial N o . 1, "A Protest against Public Punishments," in Teeters, They Were in Prison, 447; 1786 law quoted in Barnes, 119; Virginia Committee Report, in Ayers, 6 1 - 6 2 ; Roscoe, Observations, 74-75, 77.

25. Roscoe, Observations, 7 4 - 7 5 , 77; Turnbull, 34; see also Skotnicki, 55. 26. Reports of the Prison Discipline Society, 1:18; Eddy, 6 7 - 6 8 . 27. Livingston, 309; Daniel Raymond to the Committee, January 13, 1821,

in Society for the Prevention of Pauperism, Report on the Penitentiary System, Appendix 39-40, 4 7 ^ 8 .

28. Crawford, 12, 19; Bradford, 71; Bache, 5. 29. Mease, 7, 17, 45; Society for the Prevention of Pauperism, Report on the

Penitentiary System, 53; Livingston, 309; Pennsylvania Prison Society, Annual Report, 1833, cited in Crawford, x; Pennsylvania Mercury quoted in Meranze, Laboratories, 138-39; Powers, Brief Account, 37; see also Lownes, 92; Beau- mont and Tocqueville, 55.

30. Ignatieff, 231. 31. Lownes, 88. 32. Turnbull, 40; Beaumont and Tocqueville, 72; see also Eddy, 32; Knapp,

81. 33. Vaux, 5 8 - 5 9 ; Turnbull, 4 1 - 4 2 ; Mease, 73; Eddy, 32; George Keith Taylor

quoted in Keve, 37; Roberts Vaux to the Committee, November 14, 1820, in So- ciety for the Prevention of Pauperism, Report on the Penitentiary System, Ap- pendix 2 3 - 2 4 ; Beaumont and Tocqueville, 55, 84; see also Hirsch, 19; Skotnicki, 57, 59.

34. "Superintendent's Report to the Legislature, 1818," quoted in Keve, 56; Eddy 6 2 - 6 3 ; Mease, 17; Crawford, 10, 12; Pennsylvania Prison Society, Annual Report, 1833, quoted in Crawford, x; see also Lewis, From Newgate to Dan-

Notes to Chapter 6 I 296

nemora, 92; Rothman, Discovery of the Asylum, 94-95; Beaumont and Toc- queville, 84.

35. Thomas Eddy to Patrick Colquhoun, June 5, 1802, in Knapp, 180; Thomas Eddy to George Tibbits, Stephen Allen, and Samuel M. Hopkins, in ibid., 89; see also Lewis, Development of American Prisons, 81-82; Lewis, From Newgate to Dannemora, 6 9 - 7 0 ; Teeters, They Were in Prison, 187-88.

36. Beaumont and Tocqueville, 59; Crawford, 11; see also Teeters, They Were in Prison, 187; Vaux, 59; Livingston, 315, 691; Society for the Alleviation of Miseries in Public Prisons, Memorial N o . 9, "A Further Appeal for a New Prison, December 1827," in Teeters, They Were in Prison, 461.

37. Turnbull, 14; Eddy, 35; see also Hindus, 164; Livingston, 336; Hirsch, 84. 38. Roscoe, Observations, 161-62; Turnbull, 4 - 5 ; Mease, 18, 7 6 - 7 7 ; see also

Beaumont and Tocqueville, 70; Hopkins, "Report of the Committee," in Society for the Prevention of Pauperism, Report on the Penitentiary System, Appendix 105.

39. Daniel Raymond to the Committee, January 13, 1821, in Society for the Prevention of Pauperism, Report on the Penitentiary System, Appendix 4 2 - 4 3 .

40. Samuel Sparhawk to the Committee, August 9, 1820, in ibid., Appendix 60.

41. Livingston, 334; Beaumont and Tocqueville, 5 6 - 5 7 ; see also Hindus, 163-65; Hirsch, 24, 31; Bache, 10; Rothman, Discovery of the Asylum, 9 2 - 9 3 ; Lewis, Development of American Prisons, 86-87.

42. Livingston, 335. 43. Beaumont and Tocqueville, 57; Livingston, 3 3 5 - 3 8 ; see also Teeters, They

Were in Prison, 183; Rothman, Discovery of the Asylum, 86. 44. Reynolds, 31; see also Barnes, 164-65; Roscoe, Observations, 143,

163-64, 172; Livingston, 3 3 7 - 3 9 ; Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, 27; Beaumont and Tocqueville, 71; "Report of the Board of Inspectors of the Prison for the City and County of Philadelphia in the Year 1791," in Roscoe, Observations, Appen- dix 23; "Report of the Commissioners to the Legislature of Massachusetts, 1817," in ibid., Appendix 99.

45. Eddy, 55; Reports of the Prison Discipline Society, 1:81; Bulfinch, 8; Thomas Eddy to Samuel Hoare, November 15, 1819, in Knapp, 298.

46. Hirsch, 93; Keve, 28; Colvin, 98; Lewis, From Newgate to Dannemora, 100; Lewis, Development of American Prisons, 132, 135, 138.

47. "A View of the New-York State Prison," in Roscoe, Observations, Ap- pendix 44; Lieber, 16, 19; Livingston, 336; Thomas Eddy in Knapp, 82; Craw- ford, 39; see also Eddy, 54; Glenn 53.

48. Bradford, 87; Powers, Brief Account, 18-19; Livingston, 701; Allen, Ob- servations, 21; see also Blake McKelvey, American Prisons: A History of Good Intentions (Montclair, NJ: Patterson Smith, 1977), 20.

49. T. Stephen Whitman, '"I Have Got the Gun and Will Do as I Please with

298 I Notes to Chapter 6

Her': African-Americans and Violence in Maryland, 1 7 8 2 - 1 8 3 0 , " in Daniels and Kennedy, 256; James D. Rice, "Laying Claim to Elizabeth Shoemaker: Fam- ily Violence and Baltimore's Waterfront, 1808-1812," in ibid., 187-88.

50. 1786 law cited in Barnes, 130; Inspectors to Governor George Wolf, July 26, 1830, quoted in Teeters, Cradle of the Penitentiary, 83-84; Rochefoucauld- Liancourt, 2 6 - 2 7 ; Roscoe, Observations, 105-6; Eddy, 6 7 - 6 8 .

51. Roscoe, Observations, 81; "Report of the Board of Inspectors of the Prison for the City and County of Philadelphia," in ibid., Appendix 1.

52. "Report of the Commissioners to the Legislature of Massachusetts, 1817," in ibid., Appendix 90; Williams, Pillars of Salt, 3 2 1 - 2 2 ; Crawford, 7, 4 0 - 4 1 .

53. Lieber, 28, 30-31; Mease, 3 0 - 3 1 . 54. Lownes, 82; Massachusetts officials quoted in Hindus, 117; Philadelphia

Board of Inspectors quoted in Teeters, Cradle of the Penitentiary, 83.

N O T E S T O C H A P T E R 7

1. Powers, Brief Account, 3. 2. Crawford, Appendix 72. 3. Powers, Brief Account, 4. 4. Reports of the Prison Discipline Society, 1:36-37, 84; Anonymous, Dia-

logue on the Penitentiary System, 24; see also Rothman, Discovery of the Asy- lum, 105.

5. "Rules, Orders, and Regulations," in Bradford, Appendix 102; Eddy, 37; Reynolds, 122.

6. Powers, Brief Account, 3, 7; Reports of the Prison Discipline Society, 1:7, 3 3 6 - 3 7 ; Crawford, 10, 16.

7. Foucault, Discipline and Punish, 201. 8. Roscoe, Observations, 68; Lownes, 83; "A View of the New-York State

Prison," in Roscoe, Observations, Appendix 34; "Rules, Orders, and Regula- tions," in Bradford, Appendix 103.

9. Minutes of the Board, March 14, 1808, in Teeters, Cradle of the Peniten- tiary, 57; "A View of the New-York State Prison," in Roscoe, Observations, Ap- pendix 45, 49; Livingston, 7 0 9 - 1 0 , 713; Eddy, 53; see also Lewis, Development of American Prisons, 50.

10. Livingston, 335; "A View of the New-York State Prison," in Roscoe, Ob- servations, 48.

11. Livingston, 338; see also Barnes, 150-51. 12. Carey, 16. 13. Allen, Observations, 11, 15, 19, 2 7 - 2 8 , 51; Massachusetts State Prison

Directors quoted in Wines, 152; Massachusetts State Prison Board of Visitors quoted in Lewis, Development of American Prisons, 73.