Abstract
The originality and truly revolutionary nature of social control characterising the United States of America from the early part of the nineteenth century is fully intelligible if we bear in mind social attitudes towards deviant phenomena in the colonial period preceding the birth of the new republic.
Labour is the fate of the modern peoples … Labour must become the religion of the prisons. A society-machine requires purely mechanical means of reform.
(L. Faucher, De la reforme des prisons , Paris, 1838, p. 64)
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Notes
- 1.
This thesis is largely agreed upon by the main authors concerned with the question of poor relief during the colonial period. Among the best documented and interesting are: D. M. Schneider, The History of Public Welfare in New York, 1609–1866 (Chicago, 1938); M. Creech, Three Centuries of Poor Law Administration (Chicago, 1942); J. Leiby, Charity and Corrections in New Jersey (New Brunswick, N J, 1967); and finally, the first chapter (‘The Foundaries of Colonial Society’) by D. J. Rothman, The Discovery of the Asylum, Social Order and Disorder in the New Republic (Boston-Toronto, 1971).
- 2.
S. Cooper, A Sermon Preached in Boston, New England, Before the Society for Encouraging Industry and Employing the Poor (Boston, 1753) p. 20.
- 3.
Besides the authors already cited in note 1, on the theme of social mobility in eighteenth-century America, see specifically: R. W. Romsey, Carolina Cradle: Settlement of the Northwest Carolina Frontier, 1747 – 1762 (Chapel Hill, N C, 1964).
- 4.
Besides works already cited, see: S. V. James, A People Among People: Quaker Benevolence in Eighteenth-Century America (Cambridge, Mass., 1963) particularly the second and third chapters.
- 5.
See the classic (even if it is criticised by many): F. J. Turner, The Frontier in American History (New York, 1920).
- 6.
Rothman, The Discovery of the Asylum, p. 12.
- 7.
For an analysis of the first urban settlements in the colonial period, see: M. Zuckerman, Peaceable Kingdoms: New England in Eighteenth Century (New York, 1970); P. J. Grevin, Jnr., Four Generations: Population, Land and Family in Colonial Andover, Massachusetts (Ithaca, New York, 1970).
- 8.
Besides Romsey already cited, for an analysis of the culture of the community of settlers, see: C. Bridenbaugh, Cities in Revolt (New York, 1955); H. Adams, The United States in 1800 (Ithaca: New York, 1955).
- 9.
Besides the authors cited in note 1, see: S. Riesenfeld, ‘The Formative Era of American Assistance Law’, California Law Review (1955) n. 43, pp. 175–223.
- 10.
The most reliable sources on the colonial American relief system – plus some figures and statistics on the phenomenon – can be found in: C. G. Chamberlayne (ed.), Vestry Book of St Paul’s Parish, Hanover County, 1706 – 1786 (Richmond, Va., 1940); Chamberlayne (ed.), Vestry Book and Register of St Peter’s Parish, New Kent and James City Counties, Virginia, 1684–1786 (Richmond, Va., 1937); Chamberlayne (ed.), The Vestry Book of Blisland Parish, New Kent and James City Counties, Virginia, 1721–1786 (Richmond, Va., 1935).
- 11.
The most revealing sources which bear witness to the fact that social order was seen as being ideally based on residential stability and landed property is provided by the prolific production of preachings and sermons published in cheap editions, amongst which see: B. Colman, The Unspeakable Gift of God: A Right Charitable and Bountiful Spirit to the Poor and Needy Members of Jesus Christ (Boston, 1739); C. Chauncy, The Idle Poor Secluded from the Bread of Charity by Christian Law (Boston, 1752). A. Heimert, P. Miller (eds), The Great Awakening (Indianapolis, 1967).
- 12.
In Colonial Laws of New York from the Year 1664 to the Revolution (Albany, 1894).
- 13.
D. M. Schneider, The history of Public Welfare in New York State, 1609–1866 (Chicago, 1938) ch. 2.
- 14.
In Laws of New York from the Year 1691 to 1751, inclusive, (New York, 1752) pp. 143–5.
- 15.
In Colonial Laws of New York, pp. 513–17.
- 16.
In Acts and Laws of the English Colony of Rhode-Island and Providence Plantations, in New England, in America (New Port, R. I., 1767) pp. 228–32.
- 17.
In Laws of the Government of New Castle, Kent and Sussex upon Delaware (Philadelphia, 1741) pp. 208–15.
- 18.
In A Complete Record of all the Acts of the Assembly of the Province of North Carolina Now in Force and Use (Newbern, N. C., 1773) pp. 172–4.
- 19.
Amongst the many essays on the most advanced positions on general social policy and penitentiary reform, particularly in Pennsylvania, for the moment see: T. Sellin, ‘Philadelphia Prisons of the Eighteenth Century’, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 43, part i (1953) pp. 326–30; H. E. Barnes, The Evolution of Penology in Pennsylvania (Indianapolis, 1927); H. E. Barnes, N. K. Teeters, New Horizons in Criminology (New York, 1943) pp. 490 ff.; N. K. Teeters, The Cradle of the Penitentiary (Philadelphia, 1955) ch. 1; O. F. Lewis, The Development of American Prisons and Prison Customs, 1776–1845 (Albany, 1922); B. McKelvey, American Prisons. A History of Good Intentions (Montclair, N J, 1977) ch. 1.
- 20.
On the social implications of religious feeling in pre-revolutionary policy, see: Haimert, Miller (ed.), The Great Awakening; A. Haimert, Religion and the American Mind: From the Great Awakening to the Revolution (Cambridge, Mass., 1966). More particularly, on the role of the Quakers in American Colonies, see: J. Sykes, The Quakers. A New Look at Their Place in Society (New York, 1958).
- 21.
The legal corpus, approved by the Assembly of Chester, 4 December 1682 was called The Great Law or Body of Laws.
- 22.
This legal corpus begins with an unusual (for the time) declaration which guarantees freedom of conscience and belief thereby abolishing the side range of religious crimes. Teeters deals with this point in The Cradle of the Penitentiary, p. 3.
- 23.
Taken from Teeters, ibid., p. 3.
- 24.
Ibid., p. 3.
- 25.
Again from Teeters, ibid., p. 4.
- 26.
This testimony from R. Vaux on the internal regime of the gaol – in this case the Old Stone Prison – is taken from his work, Notices of the Original and Successive Efforts to Improve the Discipline of the Prison of Philadelphia (1826) p. 14.
- 27.
The diary of S. R. Fisher (1745–1834) in which he describes his experience as an inmate (1779–81) was published after his death by his niece, Anna Wharton Morris, at Philadelphia, precise date unknown.
- 28.
Sellin, Philadelphia Prisons of the Eighteenth Century, p. 326.
- 29.
See Rothman, The Discovery of the Asylum, pp. 30–1.
- 30.
For a description of the prevention-repression of vagabondage and pauperism in the mother country and for figures on internment in poorhouses and workhouses, see Sidney and Beatrice Webb, English Local Government: English Poor Law History: Part I, The Old Poor Law (London, 1927); M. Blaug ‘The Myth of the Old Poor Law and the Making of the New’, Journal of Economic History, no. 23 (1967) pp. 151–84.
- 31.
Population figures are taken from: U S Census Bureau, Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1957 (Washington, 1960) p. 14.
- 32.
Precise information on this typical form of poor relief during the colonial era is found in the volumes edited by Chamberlayne, cited in note 10.
- 33.
D. Carrol, ‘History of the Baltimore City Hospitals’, Maryland State Medical Journal (1966) p. 15.
- 34.
Rothman, The Discovery of the Asylum, p. 43.
- 35.
Ibid.
- 36.
H. M. Hurd, The Institutional Care of the Insane in the United States and Canada, vol. iii (Baltimore, 1916) p. 380.
- 37.
R. H. Shryock, Medicine and Society in America: 1660–1860 (New York, 1960).
- 38.
Between 1693 and 1776, amongst the 446 cases brought before the Supreme Court of New York, at least 87 were sentenced to death (from J. Goebel, T. R. Naughton, Law Enforcement in Colonial New York (1944) p. 702, note 139). On the role of capital punishment in the colonial period, see also L. H. Gipson, ‘Crime and Punishment in Provincial Pennsylvania’, in Lehigh University Publications, no. 9 (1935) pp. 11–12; H. F. Rankin, Criminal Trial Proceedings in the General Court of Virginia (Charlottesville, Va., 1965) pp. 121–2.
- 39.
On this see: Goebel and Naughton, Law Enforcement, p. 707, note 151.
- 40.
Rothman, The Discovery of the Asylum, p. 50.
- 41.
Ibid., p. 55.
- 42.
Ibid., p. 55.
- 43.
See note 11.
- 44.
B. Wadsworth, The Well-Ordered Family or Relative Duties: Being the Substance of Several Sermons (Boston, 1712) p. 90.
- 45.
S. Willard, Impenitent Sinners Warned of their Misery and Summoned to Judgment (Boston, 1698) p. 26
- 46.
As we will see, the phenomenon of the institutionalisation of stray and abandoned children will only become dominant from the nineteenth century.
- 47.
US Census Bureau, Historical Statistics (1960) p. 14.
- 48.
Ibid.
- 49.
D. North, ‘Industrialization in the United States’, The Cambridge Economic History, vol. vi, part ii (Cambridge; 1965) p. 678.
- 50.
F. W. Taussig, The Tariff History of the United States, (New York, 1914) p. 28.
- 51.
J. F. Jameson, The American Revolution Considered as a Social Movement, (Princeton, 1926) pp. 100, 101.
- 52.
Ibid., pp. 46, 47.
- 53.
Ibid., p. 49.
- 54.
Ibid., p. 52.
- 55.
Ibid., p. 58.
- 56.
Ibid., p. 66.
- 57.
H. Conrad, J. R. Meyer, ‘The Economics of Slavery in the Antebellum South’, Journal of Political Economy, vol. lxvi, no. 2 (1958) pp. 95–130; P. S. Foner, Business and Slavery: The New York Merchants and the Irrepressible Conflict (Chapel Hill, 1941).
- 58.
Jameson, The American Revolution, p. 108.
- 59.
North, Industrialization in the U S, p. 678.
- 60.
Jameson, The American Revolution, pp. 85, 86.
- 61.
North, Industrialization in the US, p. 678.
- 62.
Ibid., p. 739.
- 63.
J. P. Bigelow, Statistical Tables: Exhibiting the condition and products of certain branches of Industry in Massachusetts, for year Ending April 1, 1837 (Boston, 1838); D. Francis, Statistical Information Relating to Certain Branches of Industry in Manufactures for the Year Ending June 1,1855 (Boston, 1856).
- 64.
R. Gallman, ‘Commodity Output, 1839–99’, Trends in the American Economy in the Nineteenth Century, Studies in Income and Wealth, vol. xxiv (Princeton, 1960) table A-5, p. 56.
- 65.
US Census Bureau, Historical Statistics, p. 14.
- 66.
North, Industrialization in the US, p. 683.
- 67.
M. T. Copeland, The Cotton Manufacturing Industry of the United States (Cambridge, Mass., 1912) p. 6.
- 68.
V. S. Clark, The History of Manufactures in the United States, 1860- 1914, vol. ii (New York) p. 452.
- 69.
US Census Office, The Eighth Census: Manufactures of the United States in 1860 (Washington, 1965) pp. 733–42.
- 70.
Ibid., pp. 733–42.
- 71.
G. S. Gibbs, ‘The Saco-Lowell Shops’, Textile machinery Building in New England, 1813–1849 (Cambridge, 1950) p. 179.
- 72.
A. H. Cole, The American Wool Manufacture (Cambridge, 1926) vol. i, p. 276.
- 73.
US Census Office, The Eighth Census: Manufactures of the United States in 1860 (1865) pp. 733–42.
- 74.
The English Commissions which investigated United States manufacturing in the 1850s, whose reports represent the most careful evaluation of American manufacture progress prior to the Civil War, placed first emphasis upon the size and composition of the market. They noted not only the absolute size and rate of growth of the population but also the high average wealth of the people. The two investigations were: The official reports presented to the British Parliament by Sir Joseph Whitworth and George Wallis, later published separately as: J. Whitworth, G. Wallis, The Industry of the United States in Machinery, Manufactures and Useful and Ornamental Arts (London, 1854); and Report of the Commission of the Machinery of the United States, in Parliamentary Papers 1854–55, l.
- 75.
D. North, The Economic Growth of the United States, 1790—1860 (Englewood Cliffs, 1961).
- 76.
B. Moore, Jr., Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World (London, 1967), ch. iii, ‘The American Civil War: The Last Capitalist Revolution’, p. 111.
- 77.
Moore, Jr., ibid., p. 14.
- 78.
P. W. Gates, The Farmer’s Age: Agriculture 1815–1860 (New York, 1962) p. 143; North, Economic Growth, pp. 67–8.
- 79.
Moore, Jr., Social Origins of Dictatorship, p. 132.
- 80.
North, Industrialization in the US, p. 690.
- 81.
Whitworth, Wallis, Industry of the United States, preface, p. viii.
- 82.
This observation is taken from the famous report of Yates (1824) to the Parliament of New York. The full text of his report can be found in New York Senate Journal (1824).
- 83.
Again in Yates’s report, above.
- 84.
NYSPP, Second Annual Report (New York, 1819) Appendix, p. 6.
- 85.
T. Sedgwick, Public and Private Economy, Part i (New York, 1836) p. 95.
- 86.
See note 82.
- 87.
From the report of Quincy to the Parliament of Massachusetts, in Massachusetts General Committee Pauper Laws, Report of the Committee (1821).
- 88.
S. Lebergott, Manpower in Economic Growth: The American Record Since 1800 (New York, 1964) p. 188.
- 89.
New York Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor, Thirteenth Annual Report (New York, 1857) p. 16.
- 90.
New York Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor, Fourteenth Annual Report (New York, 1857) p. 16.
- 91.
New York Almshouse Commissioner, Annual Report for 1848 (New York, 1849) p. 86.
- 92.
Rothman, The Discovery of the Asylum, p. 164.
- 93.
Writings on the historical origins of American childcare are particularly prolific: amongst the many essays, see: H. Folks, The Care of Destitute, Neglected, and Delinquent Children (Albany, 1900): H. Thurston, The Dependent Child (New York, 1930); R. S. Pickett, House of Refuge: Origins of Juvenile Reform in New York State, 1815 – 1857 (Syracuse, N.Y., 1969); M. Katz, The Irony of Early School Reform (Cambridge, Mass., 1968); R. Bremner (ed.), Children and Youth in America (Cambridge, Mass., 1970) vol. 1.
- 94.
Rothman, The Discovery of the Asylum, p. 170.
- 95.
On the specific theme of the interpretation of insanity in the new republic and more generally, on the historic reconstruction of social reaction of an institutional and segregational form to the world of the insane, see: A. Deutsch, The Mentally Ill in America: A History of their Care and Treatment (New York, 1949); N. Dain, Concepts of Insanity in the United States, 1789–1865 (New Brunswick, 1964); R. Caplan, Psychiatry and the Community in Nineteenth Century America (New York, 1969); M. D. Altschule, Roots of Modern Psychiatry: Essays in the History of Psychiatry (New York, 1957).
- 96.
E. Javis, Causes of Insanity: An Address Delivered Before the Norfolk, Massachusetts, District Medical Society (Boston, 1851) p. 17.
- 97.
P. Earle, An Address on Psychologic Medicine (Utica, New York, 1867) p. 18.
- 98.
G. Howe, ‘Insanity in Massachusetts’, North American Review, no. 56 (1843) p. 6.
- 99.
E. Javis, Causes of Insanity, p. 14.
- 100.
E. Javis, ‘On the Supposed Increase of Insanity’, American Journal of Insanity (1852) p. 34.
- 101.
I. Ray, Mental Hygiene (Boston, 1863) pp. 259–61.
- 102.
See note 95.
- 103.
Rothman, The Discovery of the Asylum, p. 129.
- 104.
H. E. Barnes, The Evolution of Penology in Pennsylvania (Indianapolis, 1927) pp. 63 ff.; F. Lewis, The Development of American Prisons and Prison Customs (Albany, 1922) pp. 51 ff.
- 105.
G. Rusche and O. Kirchheimer, Punishment and Social Structure (New York, 1968) pp. 127 ff.
- 106.
Related in Barnes, The Evolution of Penology in Pennsylvania, p. 82.
- 107.
Ibid., p. 90.
- 108.
B. McKelvey, American Prisons. A History of Good Intentions, pp. 6 ff.
- 109.
Ibid., p. 7.
- 110.
H. E. Barnes, The Repression of Crime (New York, 1926) pp. 29 ff. Lewis, The Development of American Prisons and Prison Customs, 1776–1845, pp. 43 ff: McKelvey, American Prisons, A History of Good Intentions, pp. 6 ff.
- 111.
J. Bentham, Panopticon (1787), in The Works of J. Bentham, vol. iv (New York, 1962).
- 112.
Bentham, Panopticon from the ‘subtitle’. In an interview with the journal Pro Justitia, Foucault sharply observed: ‘Le rève de Bentham, le Panopticon, ou un seul individu purrait surveiller tout le monde, c’est, du fond, le rève, ou plutôt, un des rèves de la bourgeoisie (parce qu’elle a beaucoup rèves)’ (1973) no. 3 and 4, p. 7.
- 113.
For an analysis of penitentiary organisation of the Philadelphian type, also see pp. 212 ff.
- 114.
McKelvey, American Prisons, ch. 1; Lewis, The Development of American Prisons and Prison Customs, p. 77.
- 115.
Regarding the internal organisations of prisons of this kind, see pp. 218 ff.
- 116.
See, in particular, pp. 180 ff.
- 117.
See: T. Sellin, ‘Commutation of Sentence’, Encyclopedia of Social Sciences, iv, pp. 108–9.
- 118.
Barnes, The Repression of Crime, pp. 272–3.
- 119.
The most informed studies in terms of documentation and full treatment of the topic of convict labour policies in nineteenth century America are: H. C. Mohler, ‘Convict Labor Policies’, Journal of American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology, vol. 15 (1924–5) pp. 530–97; H. T. Jackson, ‘Prison Labor’, Journal of American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology, vol. 15 (1927–8) pp. 218–68.
- 120.
M. Foucault, Surveiller et punir, Naissance de la prison, (Paris, 1975) p. 246, English Trans., Discipline and Punish. The Birth of the Prison (London, 1977).
- 121.
Besides authors cited in note 119, see: L. Collins, ‘The State-Use System’, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol. xlvi (1913) pp. 138–41; H. Frayne, ‘The State-Use System’, Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology (1921) pp. 330–8.
- 122.
S. J. Barrows, ‘Convict Road Building’, Charities, vol. xxi (1908–9) pp. 1879 ff; Idem, ‘Roadmaking as a Reform Measure’, The Survey, vol. xxvi (1911) pp. 157 ff; H. R. Cooley, ‘The Out Door Treatment of Crime’, The Outlook, vol. xcvii (1911) pp. 403–11; O. R. Geyer, ‘Making Roads and Men’, Scientific American, vol. lxxxi (1916) supplement no. 2112, pp. 408 ff.; S. Hill, ‘Convict Labour in the Road Building’, Town Development (1913) pp. 119 ff.
- 123.
E. H. Sutherland, Criminology (New York, 1926) pp. 456–7; Jackson, Prison Labor, pp. 225–6; Mohler, Convict Labor Policies, p. 548.
- 124.
L. N. Robinson, Penology in the United States (Philadelphia) pp. 159 ff.; Mohler, Convict Labour Policies, p. 551.
- 125.
Robinson, Penology in the United States, pp. 164 ff; Jackson, Prison Labor, 26 ff.
- 126.
Mohler, Convict Labour Policies, p. 548.
- 127.
M. N. Goodnow, ‘Turpentine-Impressions of the Convict Camps of Florida’, The Survey, vol. xxxiv (1915) pp. 103–8. O. F. Lewis, The Bright Side of Florida’s Penal Methods’, Literary Digest, vol. lxxvii (1923) pp. 210 ff; idem., ‘The Spirit of Railford–Florida’s Substitution for the Convict Lease-System’, The Survey, (1921) pp. 45–8; P. S. J. Wilson, ‘Convict Camps in South’, Proceedings of the National Conference of Charities and Corrections (Baltimore: 1915) pp. 378 ff.
- 128.
Jackson, Prison Labor, p. 230.
- 129.
G. Ives, A History of Penal Methods (London, 1914) p. 174.
- 130.
Mohler, Convict Labor Policies, p. 556.
- 131.
J. B. McMaster, A History of the People of the United States, from the Revolution to the Civil War, vol. vi (New York, 1920) p. 101.
- 132.
Mohler, Convict Labor Policies, p. 557.
- 133.
Ibid., p. 557.
- 134.
‘Its dealings with the criminal mark, one may say, the zero point in the scale of treatment which society conceives to be due to its various members. If we raise this point we raise the standard all along the scale. The pauper may justly expect something better than the criminal, the self-supporting poor man or woman than the pauper’ (L. T. Hobhouse, Morals in Evolution’, Law and Justice (London, 1951) p. 125).
- 135.
E. T. Hiller, ‘Development of the System of Control of Convict Labor in the United States’, Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, vol. v (1915) p. 243.
- 136.
Mohler, Convict Labor Policies, p. 558.
- 137.
G. de Beaumont, A. de Tocqueville, On Penitentiary System in the United States and Its Application in France (Southern Illinois University Press, 1964) p. 36.
- 138.
In E. C. Wines, The State of Prisons and of Child-Saving Institutions in the Civilized World (Cambridge, 1880) p. 109.
- 139.
In Wines, ibid., p. 109.
- 140.
Mohler, Convict Labor Policies, p. 558.
- 141.
See authors cited in note 127. On the employment of the leasing system in the Southern States of America, see: H. Alexander, ‘The Convict Lease and the System of Contract Labor. Their Place in History’, The South Mobilizing for Social Service (1913) p. 167; G. W. Cable, ‘The Convict Lease System in the Southern States’, Proceedings of National Conference of Charities and Corrections (1883) pp. 296–7; C. E. Russell, ‘A Burglar in the Making’, Everybody’s Magazine, vol. 28 (1908) pp. 753–60.
- 142.
J. R. Simonds, J. T. McEnnis, The Story of Manual Labor in All Lands and Ages (Chicago, 1886) pp. 486–94.
- 143.
J. R. Commons et al., History of Labor in the United States (New York, 1921) vol. i, p. 155.
- 144.
Ibid., p. 155.
- 145.
Mohler, Convict Labour, p. 559.
- 146.
Commons et al., History of Labor in the United States, vol. i, p. 347.
- 147.
J. P. Tracy, ‘The Trade Unions’ Attitude toward Prison Labor’, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol. xlvi (1913) pp. 132–8.
- 148.
Jackson, Prison Labor, p. 245.
- 149.
Commons et al., History of Labor in the United States, vol. i, p. 369.
- 150.
Mohler, Convict Labor, p. 560.
- 151.
Commons et al., History of Labor in the United States, vol. i, p. 347.
- 152.
Mohler, Convict Labor, p. 561.
- 153.
Ibid., p. 561.
- 154.
Commons et al., History of Labor in the United States, vol. ii, p. 37.
- 155.
In Hiller, Development of the Systems of Control of Convict Labor in the United States, p. 256.
- 156.
United States Bureau of Labor, Convict Labor, Bulletin no. 372 (1923) p. 18.
- 157.
Ibid., p. 18.
- 158.
Ibid.
- 159.
See Twenty-Seventh Annual Report of the State Commission of Prisons, State of New York (New York, 1921), Proceedings of the National Prison Association (1870, 1873, 1874, 1883–1921); vol. 40 (New York, 1871–1921).
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Pavarini, M. (2018). The Jacksonian Era: Economic Development, Marginality and Social Control Policy. In: The Prison and the Factory (40th Anniversary Edition). Palgrave Studies in Prisons and Penology. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-56590-7_4
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