Originally written on: 1 March 2016
The Fallen Saints America’s fascination with crime, justice, and punishment began in the late 18 th century with the creation of the first penitentiary in Pennsylvania. These mysterious institutions brought about a new system of justice and blocked the public’s eye –one that was used to scrutinizing every detail of a criminal’s punishment. The high, windowless walls and streams of stripe-clad prisoners provoked dark fantasies regarding their tortured souls, and an immense curiosity of their lightless life. As an increasing number of prisons were constructed, literary works emerged to satiate and enthrall readers on the subject; novels referring to offenders and their crimes, the justice system, and ‘historic’ recountings gained popularity, encouraging prisoners to dramatize their own experiences in books and newspaper columns. Notorious individuals like Billy the Kid, H.H. Holmes, John Wilkes Booth, and William Poole were immortalized in these writings, with their lawless actions, heinous essence, and merciless trials that remain relevant even in 21 st century media. The management of 19 th century male criminals were well documented, and several notorious cases are familiar to modern audiences, but their ‘fairer’, female counterparts do not have such a prominent place in common knowledge or contemporary entertainment. These women’s residences and treatments are infrequently discussed, but their stories are just as ominous, just as repulsive, if not more so. In colonial America, misconduct and discipline were rigidly regulated by the community, religious institutions, and any immediate family. As demonstrated in The Scarlet Letter, punishment revolved largely around public humiliation and was delivered equally to both sexes- although certain crimes were linked to only one sex, like witchcraft. Penances were carried out for specific crimes and the number of times they were committed; reparations included physical violence through whipping, branding, flogging, and hanging, societal reimbursement through workhouses, and periods of reflection in the stocks, pillories, and gossip’s bridles (Cox). This system of justice waned in the late 18 th century, when Quakers gained judiciary power and the humaneness/effectiveness of public discipline was questioned. With time and discussion, the number of executions and public displays of humiliation declined; a new form of justice was conceived, one with an intent to reform instead of solely distributing punishment. However, prisons were not numerous or knowledgeable until the mid-19 th century, so the few reformatories available were often overcrowded, poorly managed, unsuccessful social experiments. While a great deal of male thieves, murderers, rapists, arsonists, and drunkards were imprisoned, females usually managed to escape their benevolent reformation. In the early 1800s, women did not have all the rights of citizenship granted to men, including some rights to property. When a woman married, she lost the few rights she did have and “entered a state of civil death” (Crumrin); with the exchange of vows, women lost the ability to create contracts or wills, control their monetary earnings, or take part in additional legal transactions. Due to her inability to directly own property or currency, married women were excluded from debtor or property crimes. Aside from having less liberties to violate, women also had fewer opportunities to commit crimes. Women did not usually work outside of the home, and were typically expected to be within residence throughout the day. Female’s strict, regimented lives kept them out of trouble for the most part, and punishment was still generally enforced by husbands, community elders, and the church. Female imprisonment was typically unnecessary, but was occasionally used to teach a moral or social lesson, reduce the number of women working or living on the streets, and to punish someone the community could not control. Most women’s crimes were nonviolent and disruptive to public order (crimes against property and people were dominated by males, with men’s convictions in the New York State Prison outnumbering women’s fifteen to one), but those that did commit violent crimes (murder, abortion, or child abandonment) were imprisoned, institutionalized, or executed (Freedman 11). Crimes against public order were directed towards women and altered frequently throughout the 19 th century. It encompassed several social and moral crimes that applied exclusively to women of the era, such as adultery, prostitution, begging, and displaying a lusty demeanor (Freedman 14), but also included drunkenness and slander. Although these standards seem one- sided, females were considered not only physical distinctive, but morally unique when compared to men. Women were thought to be naturally pure, having no desire for sexual activity and being more honest and frail than men. Due to their heightened morality, women were deemed responsible for themselves, their children, their spouse, and other men they came into contact with. For these reasons, certain cases of rape or violence were deemed provoked actions -with both parties being punished; any action, speech, or dress that deviated from moral norms was severely penalized, because the violator influenced others to misbehave, was against their God- given nature, and a sign of mental dysfunction that needed to be corrected. These ideals and mindsets allowed prisons to take advantage of its female prisoners, treating them as sub-human, irreparable: “The woman who dared to stray or fell from her elevated pedestal was regarded as having fallen a greater distance than a male, and hence as being beyond any possibility of reformation” (Pishko). A fallen woman”- a label given to those who broke, or were suspected of breaking sexual or moral codes- not only experienced the life-changing event of imprisonment, but experienced harsh social repercussions. After serving her sentence, the fallen women would become an outcast in her community, an ugly blemish upon the face of the earth. Friends and family of both sexes would refuse contact or association with her to preserve their own virtuous reputation, and legal employment would become impossible due to her lifelong branding as a deviant creature. In order to survive, fallen women often committed crimes that would send them into another prison sentence. Prostitution, murder, abortion, infanticide, and child abandonment were only a few acts that could lead to imprisonment; statistics displayed that most offenders were over the age of 25, were white, non-foreign, and committed either a crime of chastity or property (Freedman 14-15, 19-20, 81-88). The first prisons were not intended to house females; separate institutions for the sexes did not appear until the mid-1830s, and not regularly until the 1870s, but prisons made accommodations for the disgraceful individuals, nonetheless. The Auburn Prison, in 1821, New York, created the Auburn Plan, in which criminals were locked in individual cells at night, but were allowed to work in groups silently during the day and earn little money (“The Early Years of American Law”). The Auburn style differed greatly from the small, self-reliant, jailhouse system developed by the Quakers in the 18 th century, but soon became one of the most popular prison systems in America. This regimented plan did not apply to women, though. Above the kitchen, in a small attic, about 30 women were clustered in a filthy, windowless, unattended room for their entire sentence (which could last up to 14 years) in plain, unfitting garments. The group was fed once a day by male inmates- whom impregnated several of the women- but were otherwise neglected (Freedman 15). A separate, nearby section in the prison housed a set of Puckett 5 bulky, wooden chairs embellished with fastenings for the head, arms, and legs; these were used to discipline any unruly behavior, and was one of the few methods used to reform female conduct. In the late 1820s, women were allowed separate quarters in Auburn, and a punishment of solitary confinement. However, one inmate, Rachel Welsh, became pregnant while serving her sentence; she was soon flogged to death by a male officer, whose intentions were suspicious. Her unfortunate ordeal, and the corrupt management of the organization caused the public to take notice. A few years later, men and women were forbidden contact by law, and matrons were hired to keep order in the women’s quarters. Women were taught to behave and work as society expected in dank, dark, cramped rooms, and were encouraged to work in factories or as servants after their sentence. Soon after, a chaplain commented on his visit that “to be a male convict in [Auburn] would be quite tolerable, but to be a female convict, for any protracted period, would be worse than death” (Pishko). Yet, Auburn was not the only prison to act harshly towards its female residents. New York’s Mount Pleasant Female Prison was also overcrowded and squalid, but their rehabilitation program included gagging, straitjackets, and physical violence (Pishko). Nearby, a state prison in Indiana thought to rehabilitate those that had committed crimes of chastity by forcing them into a punishment of sexual labor. A prostitution service was provided to guards and paying inmates, who produced several illegitimate children that were sent to almshouses or orphan trains. Women that had not committed these kinds of crime were sent to a separate facility, dubbed the Chicken Coop, where they ironed, mended and washed prisoners’ clothing for the rest of their term. Unlike other institutions, the women in Indiana were allowed one ‘holiday’ a year, in which they could take a walk in the yard (Freedman 15-16). In the late 19 th century, conditions improved a little for the fallen saints. Mixed prisons were not as common, women were no longer openly neglected or raped, and women who birthed children during their sentence were allowed to serve the rest of their time in almshouses with their infant, but remained under a watchful eye. Matrons exclusively ran the reformed institutions, and headed the process to create ‘ladies’. Women were taught to sew and cook, and the concept of parole was introduced. Female inmates were allowed out of the prison to work as domestic servants if good behavior was continuously displayed. However, this did not mean that they were not disciplined, looked after, or abused, because the servitude required that the master of the house would ensure obedience and good, moral conduct (Pishko). Women of the 19th century dealt often with double standards. While behaving as expected, they were exalted above all others, but when a hint of fallibility, humanity was displayed, they became creatures below man, below human. These pitiable females had few rights or roads to success, relying heavily upon an insecure reputation that could be toppled by one mistake, one voice, one whisper. As most distasteful acts in human history, the deplorable treatment of female misconduct has been forgotten and ignored for lack of modern interest or entertainment. Holmes’ unbelievable ‘murder hotel’ and the romanticized gunslinger, Billy the Kid, excited, shocked, and captivated audiences, while banal evils were left unattended. Literature abounds on those who were nightmare incarnate, morbidly fascinating, but writings unveiling the uncomfortable nature of regulated mistreatment are fewer in number, and far less popular. Yet, the past must be reviewed- even the darkest, vilest corners of history—in order to understand where we came from, where we should go, who we do not want to be, and who we are. What is a woman, and what should be expected of her? Works Cited Ash, Juliet. “Dress Behind Bars.” New York: I.B.Tauris & Co. Ltd., 2010. Web. 5 March 2016. Cox, James A. “Bilboes, Brands, and Branks.” Colonial Williamsburg. The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Spring 2003. Web. 5 March 2016. Crumrin, Timothy. “Women and the Law in Early 19 th Century.” Conner Prairie. Connor Prairie Interactive History Park. Web. 28 Feb 2016 Freedman, Estelle B. Their Sisters’ Keeper. The University of Michigan Press, 1981. Web. 3 March 2016. Mallicoat, Stacy L. The Incarceration of Women. Sage Publishing, 2015. Web. 1 March 2016. Pishko, Jessica. “A History of Women’s Prisons”. JSTOR. ITHAKA, 4 March 2015. Web. 4 March 2016. “Punishing Women: A Very Short History 1600s-1873.” Prison Culture. 19 Dec 2010. Web. 5 March 2016. “The Early Years of American Law - Colonial Freedom, Britain's Push for Greater Control, A New Start, A New Criminal Court System.” Jrank. Net Industries. Web. 1 March 2016.
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