Expanding the Carceral State: The Early Penitentiaries of Louisiana and Arkansas

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Shifting Borders: Early-19th Century Archeology in the Trans-Mississippi South" , at the 2021 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

As the United States expanded westward the frontier attracted new settlers, including criminals.  Throughout the early 1800s state legislatures revised their criminal codes and shifted from corporal punishment to incarceration.  In early 1832, Louisiana Governor Andre B. Roman called for a new house of correction and over the three years, A. H. Legendre solicited contractors to build a facility that emulated the prison in Wethersfield, Connecticut.  The state penitentiary in Baton Rouge became the largest textile manufacturer in the state and influenced Texas to adopt a similar model.  Arkansas achieved statehood in the summer of 1836 and the following year the General Assembly contracted with a young English architect named John Haviland for a set of prison designs that resembled the Eastern Penitentiary in Philadelphia.  Prison workshops supplied cheap clothing and goods to local markets, but competition from convict labor led to opposition from citizen mechanics in both states.  

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Shifting Borders: Early-19th Century Archeology in the Trans-Mississippi South   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2021

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology