The penitentiary, the “black flower of civilized society,” in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s phrase is something society rarely looks twice at in this day and age. It seems as if prisons and penitentiaries have been around forever, but in reality the prisons that we know today came about in the late 1700’s and early 1800’s. Before this, public whippings, brandings, and hangings were the common forms of punishment. These types of punishments were “designed to express the collective disapproval of the community, elicit shame in the offender, and reinforce communal norms.”1 Yet as the times changed, so did the way things were handled. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, society was forced to adopt new measures in dealing with crime. Thus the penitentiary system was born. Although both the North and South were building penitentiaries, there were stark differences between the two. In essence, it seemed as if the South had little objective or subjective need to build penitentiaries.2 While this quote may not be entirely accurate, it is undeniable that the southern penitentiary system lagged behind its Northern counterpart.

Hangings, whippings, and confinement in stocks had long been the methods to deal with criminals. Why then did penitentiaries even come about? The common and accepted forms of punishment of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries became ineffective near the end of the eighteenth century. The reasons these methods ceased to be effective included population growth, increasing mobility and migration, and the emergence of a distinct poor population that made such sanctions as fines, whippings, and the pillory less effective than in the past.”3 Sponsors of the penitentiary argued that violent punishments were ineffective, as a jury would not convict more often than not.4 Other arguments included making the law more equitable, reasonable, and predictable.5 Nonetheless, penitentiaries did not instantaneously replace the common methods of punishment. Both the North and the South attempted to adapt and improve the current methods they had. Such adaptations included increasing the number of crimes punishable by death, yet none of the adaptations worked.6 Therefore the penitentiary was born.

The idea behind these new penitentiaries was to rehabilitate the inmates in an environment that included discipline and a strict routine.7 Rehabilitation was the ultimate goal, yet the methods used to achieve this goal included hard physical labor and confinement. In the years of the early 1800’s, humanitarian reformers began to see crime in a different light. They began to see it as a social problem-a product of faulty environment and flawed character, more than a product of human depravity.8 Thus as a humane society, reformers believed it was necessary “to remove the underlying causes of crime, sympathize and show patience toward criminals, and try to rehabilitate them.”9 Individuals realized the penitentiary offered a more efficient and reasonable way to punish criminals.10

Unlike any other period in American history, two societies were developing intricate systems of production in the 1800’s. In the North, there was rapid industrialization and urbanization, while the South was refining its plantation system with great economic success.11 To completely appreciate and understand the start and effect of the penitentiary system, it is necessary to examine it in more than one society.12 By comparing the North and South, one can truly appreciate the advances the North made, and can examine penitentiaries in a less adept environment-the South. A comparative approach allows a person to truly appreciate the differences between the North and the South.13

In the Northeast, states were famous for their building of prisons and proliferation of reform groups.14 In the same manner, slavery, plantation justice, and slave codes were the main characteristics of Southern states. The North was made up of factories, cities and immigrants, the South of slaves and farms.15 In northern states, such as Massachusetts, the law played a more significant role than it did in the South. The South was more of a frontier society where alternatives to formal authority were the way, rather than reliance on the law.16 Therefore, authority in the North was often active, while Southern states often adapted a laissez-faire approach to government. This was not immediately apparent in the backcountry, but rather appeared more in the plantation areas where aristocrats could live like manor lords.17

In the South, the authority of the planter was supported, not superseded, by the state. In the North, however, social change outpaced the traditional means of control and order.18 Family, church, and community were not satisfactory guardians of virtue and morals in an increasingly anonymous society. Therefore the state exercised power based on capital and property.19

One crucial difference between the North and the South stood out above all the others, however, and this of course is slavery. Slavery changed all relationships that were based on class and authority, relationships that were crucial to the criminal justice system.20 The question was how was the south to recognize and confine whites as criminals. For doing this would subject whites to the same type of confinement that slaves experienced.21 In order to understand southern justice, one must understand the effect of slavery.22 One possible conclusion is that the South, due to slavery, lacked the authority and justice that were present in the North.23 This is not the case however. It simply meant people had to use a different focus to understand crime and justice in the South, a focus that does not look solely at Northern norms.24

In areas of the South less affected by slavery, alternatives to the prison system existed.25 Dueling was often an effective method of settling disputes for many classes of whites. Likewise, in the backcountry, vigilantism was preferred to law enforcement.26 Longstanding tradition and economic development are crucial to understanding the differences in the use of extralegal authority.27 Nonetheless, the single most important factor that set the South behind the North in the penitentiary race was slavery. Above all, as Charles Syndor pointed out decades ago, slavery created a class that was virtually beyond the law.28

The penitentiary system was more successful in the North than it was in the South for a number of reasons.

“Chief among them was the existence of or absence of a culture of reform, the extent to which the aims of reform varied from the status quo, and the views of society and of the classes in it held by each state. Environmentalist thought in Massachusetts, spurred by religious fervor, led to a penal policy that stressed rehabilitation.”

The Northeast was where prisons made the greatest gains, yet the prison system was not invisible in the South. However, opposed to the North, which believed in fair and just treatment of criminals, the South did not drastically change its ways. The defense of personal honor caused a great number of duels and fights in the south.31 Although the south was not as advanced as the North in building prisons, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, and Virginia all had penitentiaries before 1820.32 The Georgia State Penitentiary, which was located in Milledgeville, was actually one that would be built and rebuilt several times as the prisoners often set fire to the prison.

The Georgia state penitentiary was not ready for use until February 1817, although it was built in 1811. Since its initial opening in 1817, the Georgia State Penitentiary was set ablaze or burned down five different times. Although not all these fires were intentional, the fact remains that more than a few were. Why the inmates in the Georgia State Penitentiary felt it was so necessary to burn down the prison goes beyond simply being locked up. The conditions convicts in this prison were exposed to were deplorable and sickening at best. On his visit in 1825, Duke Bernhard thought it strange that inmates were eating their food directly from the surface of a table without any silverware.33 In fact, the portions of food allotted to convicts in prison were as poor and meager as those given to slaves. Thus one way the inmates believed they could escape the nightmare they were living in was to attempt to burn down the prison.

The Georgia state penitentiary experienced a variety of problems during its first decade. Governors employing the patronage system often caused the prison to be run by individuals without training and experience in penology. The cost of the prison was also a huge burden upon Milledgeville. High costs of maintaining the prison lead to the development of other options. One of these options was the work-lease program in which inmates were forced to labor to produce items. The local town artisans and craftsmen were highly opposed to this plan as a cheaper labor supply ended up ultimately costing them in the end. These problems, coupled with the frustration and anger of the inmates, led to the first burning of the penitentiary in 1827. Although no inmates escaped during the fire, nearly the entire prison was destroyed. After great debate, the state legislature decided to rebuild the prison with granite fireproof structures. This seemed to be somewhat effective, as the prison was not set on fire again until after the Civil war.34

Although a number of fires continued to plague prison officials over the years, the next major fire did not occur until 1843. This fire was started as a protest against General Charles Nelson, the principal keeper. During the fire, Nelson refused to allow inmates out of their cells, exclaiming “Burn, damn you, burn!” to remind the inmates that they themselves had started the fire.35 It was not until the Governor ordered the cells to be unlocked that the prisoners were allowed to leave the burning building and lie down outside. Considering all the work done to the prison over the previous ten to twelve years, the cost of this fire was great. In fact, figures estimate that the cost was somewhere near $30,000.36 By today’s standards this figure may not seem overwhelming, but it was hefty for the 1800’s.

During the years 1866 and 1867 the Georgia State Penitentiary was rebuilt for the final time. Although the state had already started the process of leasing the prisoners and vacating the penitentiary, the construction continued anyways. After 1868, the State Penitentiary ceased to exist after the buildings decayed away from lack of use. The ending of the State Penitentiary’s term in Milledgeville upset no one as the locals viewed it as “a festering sore in the center of town.”37 The Georgia State Penitentiary that was built in Milledgeville in 1811, and began occupying convicts in 1816, finally ceased to be in 1868. Although no longer there, the Penitentiary is an important and irreplaceable part of the history of both Milledgeville and Georgia.

Penitentiaries in the North were less than stellar at times as well. For example, in 1786, the Pennsylvania legislature established a system that issued solitary confinement and hard labor for most major offenses.38 As society knows today, solitary confinement is a harsh and torturous treatment, one definitely not suitable for a large number of crimes. On the same note, prisons in New York were extremely overcrowded. In turn, the prison suffered from serious disciplinary problems.39 The Massachusetts state prison, in Charlestown, quickly earned an unfriendly reputation. The prison became known for harsh corporal punishment, including, but not limited to, floggings.40 Pennsylvania prisons did not commit corporal punishments, but they did include the use of objects such as strait jackets, gags, and an iron mouthpiece used to pry open a convict’s jaws.41

In examining an example of a classic southern prison, the Georgia State Penitentiary, it is obvious the North was ahead of the South in efficiently and effectively running the penitentiary system. The Northern prisons were designed by zealous reformers who would have nothing to do with the South. Furthermore, slavery inhibited the South from the very beginning, as it kept a majority of the poor under tight control.42 Yet the South built penitentiaries at almost the same rate as the North. Penitentiaries opened in Massachusetts and Maryland in 1829, and two opened in Georgia and New Hampshire in 1832.43 In conclusion, the penitentiary is “an unfortunate yet indispensable part of modern society.”44 This quote goes to show how important and influential the penitentiary system actually was. The American experiment with institutionalization was not a complete success, neither in the North nor in the South. By the 1850’s almost every type of asylum was losing its special characteristics.45 No matter its successes or failures, the penitentiary system has had a tremendous effect on all aspects of society. The prisons we have today have come a long way from their original models in the early 1800’s. While prisons today may be equal from North to South, it is fair to say this was not the case in antebellum America.

1.Steven Mintz, Moralists and Modernizers (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1995), 86.

2.Edward Ayers, Vengeance and Justice: Crime and Punishment in the 19th Century American South (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984), 34.

3.Mintz 86.

4.Ayers 43.

5.Ayers 37.

6.Mintz 86.

7.Mintz 86.

8.Mintz 86.

9.Mintz 86.

10.Ayers 37.

11.Michael Stephen Hindus, Prison and Plantation: Crime, Justice, and Authority in Massachusetts and South Carolina, 1767-1878 (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1980), xviii.

12.Hindus xviii.

13.Hindus xx.

14.Hindus xx.

15.Hindus xx.

16.Hindus xxv.

17.Hindus xxv.

18.Hindus xxv.

19.Hindus xxv.

20.Hindus xix.

21.Hindus xix.

22.Hindus xix.

23.Hindus xix.

24.Hindus xix.

25.Hindus xxvi

26.Hindus xxvi.

27.Hindus xxvi.

28.Hindus xxvi.

29.Hindus xxviii.

30.Hindus xxviii.

31.Mintz 88.

32.Mintz 89.

33.James C. Bonner, Milledgeville: Georgia’s Antebellum Capital (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1978), 70.

34.Bonner 56-57.

35.Bonner 109.

36.Bonner 109.

37.Bonner 222.

38.Myra C. Glenn, Campaigns Against Corporal Punishment: Prisoners, Sailors, Women, and Children in Antebellum America (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1984), 10.

39.Glenn 11.

40.Glenn 11.

41.Glenn 11.

42.Ayers 34.

43.Ayers 34.

44.Ayers 35.

45.David J. Rothman, The Discovery of the Asylum (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1971), 237.

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