Liberty's Prisoners. Jen Manion

      

      Liberty’s Prisoners

      EARLY AMERICAN STUDIES

      Series editors:

      Daniel K. Richter, Kathleen M. Brown,

      Max Cavitch, and David Waldstreicher

      Exploring neglected aspects of our colonial,

      revolutionary, and early national history and culture,

      Early American Studies reinterprets familiar themes

      and events in fresh ways. Interdisciplinary in character,

      and with a special emphasis on the period from about

      1600 to 1850, the series is published in partnership with

      the McNeil Center for Early American Studies.

      A complete list of books in the series

      is available from the publisher.

      Liberty’s Prisoners

      Carceral Culture in Early America

      Jen Manion

      UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS

      PHILADELPHIA

      Copyright © 2015 University of Pennsylvania Press

      All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used

      for purposes of review or scholarly citation, none of this

      book may be reproduced in any form by any means without

      written permission from the publisher.

      Published by

      University of Pennsylvania Press

      Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112

       www.upenn.edu/pennpress

      Printed in the United States of America

      on acid-free paper

      1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

       Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      ISBN 978-0-8122-4757-2

       For my teachers

      CONTENTS

       List of Abbreviations

       Introduction

       Chapter 1. Rebellious Workers

       Chapter 2. Sentimental Families

       Chapter 3. Dangerous Publics

       Chapter 4. Freedom’s Limits

       Chapter 5. Sexual Orderings

       Conclusion

       Appendix

       Notes

       Index

       Acknowledgments

       Illustrations

      ABBREVIATIONS

BOI	Inspectors of the Jail and Penitentiary House, Philadelphia Prisons System, PCA
HSP	Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
MAG	Magdalen Society of Philadelphia, HSP
MCD	Mayor’s Court Docket, PCA
PCA	Philadelphia City Archives
PFT	Prisoners for Trial Docket, Philadelphia Prisons System, PCA
PG	Pennsylvania Gazette
PMHB	Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography
PPS	Pennsylvania Prison Society, HSP
PSA	Pennsylvania State Archives, Harrisburg
PSAMPP	Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons, HSP
PSD	Prison Sentence Docket, Philadelphia Prisons System, PCA
Statutes	The Statutes at Large of Pennsylvania from 1681 to 1801, ed. James T. Mitchell, Henry Flanders, et al. (Harrisburg: Clarence M. Busch, State Printer of Pennsylvania, 1896)
VAG	Vagrancy Docket, Philadelphia Prisons System, PCA

      Introduction

      WHEN THE WAR with Great Britain finally came to an end, Pennsylvania’s legislature moved quickly to enact what it had first approved in the state constitution of 1776: major revisions to the penal code to reduce the number of capital crimes and put an end to harsh punishment.¹ Under the newly democratic government, more men than ever before gained importance in the body politic.² But the Revolutionary promises—life, liberty, happiness—were quickly foreclosed by a revised penal system that disguised its violence under the rubric of humanitarianism, replaced slavery as the disciplinary authority in African American lives, and prized the property rights of the few over the human rights of the many. A diverse class of white men, from ruling elites to middling artisans, cast their lot with the penitentiary system, hoping it would make them better men, bring back the gender roles of old, cultivate industrious habits, contain the threat of free blacks and immigrants, and regulate illicit sex. It was a tall order, made more challenging by the resistance of lower-class men working as watchmen, keepers, and guards who refused their orders, African Americans who fought back against unjust laws and people who claimed possession of them, Irish immigrants who stole items of small value to survive after serving out or abandoning their indentures, and working women who refused to give up their jobs and retreat from public life into the domestic fantasy of republicanism. When economic depression struck and crime rates spiked,