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
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
Chapter 2. Sentimental Families
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
