Penal reform, convict labor, and prison culture in Massachusetts, 1800-1880 / Larry Goldsmith.

Format:

Book

Manuscript

Microformat

Thesis/Dissertation

Author/Creator:

Goldsmith, Larry.

Contributor:

University of Pennsylvania.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Penn dissertations--History.

:History--Penn dissertations.

Local Subjects:

Penn dissertations--History.

:History--Penn dissertations.

Physical Description:

xiii, 365 leaves : illustrations ; 29 cm

Production:

1994.

Summary:

This dissertation examines the development of the Massachusetts State Prison at Charlestown, with a focus on the day-to-day affairs of the institution from its establishment in 1805 until its temporary closing in 1878. Based upon a reading of an unusually rich and previously unexamined collection of institutional records, the dissertation presents an analysis of the prison in which its occupants play a central role. It explores the ways in which the efforts of reformers and administrators collided with prisoners' work culture, the solidarities and conflicts they developed with their overseers and guards, and the tensions of class and authority that developed among the prison staff itself.

The designers of the penitentiary in nineteenth-century America envisioned the institution as a means of inculcating "habits of industry" in those whose "idleness" had led them to break the law. The records of the Charlestown prison make it clear, however, that many prisoners were far from idle. Some were farmers and artisans driven to desperate acts by the demands of a volatile and rapidly expanding economy. Others, particularly the practitioners of counterfeiting, forgery, and fraud, pursued skilled though illegitimate vocations that took advantage of an economy and a society based increasingly on commercial transactions in an impersonal marketplace.

By describing criminals, particularly property criminals, as the victims merely of "idleness," nineteenth-century prison reformers obscured the connections between the economic and social transformations of their era and the crime problem they faced. Similarly, in focusing so closely on the prison as an instrument of social control, historians of the institution have often neglected to consider the criminal law itself as a product of social and economic forces. Through an examination of the actions and circumstances of those who were convicted of crimes, and by taking into account the centers of conflict and negotiation in the internal history of the prison, this dissertation links the development of the institution to the evolution of the criminal law and its historical relation to the poor.

Notes:

Thesis (Ph.D. in History) -- Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, University of Pennsylvania, 1994.

Includes bibliographical references.

Local Notes:

University Microfilms order no.: 95-21039.

OCLC:

187450756