Laura Thurber
Dr. Teresa Coronado
English 328
31 October 2016
History
of Prisons in America
The
idea of confining and imprisoning a person as punishment for their crimes is a
relatively recent human idea. Before prisons, corporal punishments were how
justice was served. Depending on the severity of the person’s crime, their punishment
could be anywhere from whipping or time in the stocks, to execution and
enslavement. Because of the fact that society was just starting to move away
from this form of punishment, early prisons were not pleasant places for those
incarcerated. “The Inmate of the Dungeon,” a short story by W. C. Morrow, published
in 1984 by J.B. Lippincott & Company, allows the reader to sympathize with
an inmate who, despite his good behavior on all other days, is punished for
standing up for himself to a guard. While this text is an example of how far
the penal system has become as far as treating inmates like human beings, it is
also an example of how similar they still are. When people think of society and
early America, most do not think of those citizens who were in jail or prison
for most of their lives. This short story can show us how people thought of
prison in the nineteenth century, and how a story such as this was read as a ‘horror’
story. Any reader would attest that the man in “The Inmate of the Dungeon” was
merely standing up for his rights, asking for what had been promised to him. He
was in solitude for two years, living only on bread and water, all because of
the simple mistake of the warden. While this story is fiction, it does show the
violent history of how humans try to exact justice upon others, and it is an
important part of American history.
William
Chambers Morrow was born on July 7, 1854 in Selma, Alabama. His parents ran a
hotel. William went to Howard College (now Samford University), and moved to
California in 1879. He submitted stories to The Argonaut and the San
Francisco Examiner, and his first
book was published in 1882. In California, he was a fairly well-known
writer. The Oakland Tribune wrote about him in 1903, saying “Few Pacific Coast
writers are more deserving of the fame which has come to them than W. C. Morrow,
the author. No one since Bret Harte has done more to develop a characteristic
Californian literature…. He is well known, both through his writings and
lectures, as well as his classes in the Art of Prose Expression.” (Oakland Tribune,
1903 p 20). He taught lessons on “practical writing for publication” (Oakland
Tribune, 1899 p 4) out of his home. Most of his stories were published in the
newspaper as serials, but he also had a few novels published, and “The Inmate
of the Dungeon” appeared in his collection of short stories The Ape, the
Idiot and Other People, published
in 1897. He is considered by some to be one of the “truly great American masters
of the horror story,” (Hanley). He died on April 3, 1923 at the age of 68.
Whether W. C. Morrow
ever visited a prison, or was in prison, or just heard stories about it I was
not able to find out. But there probably were incidents like the one depicted
in “The Inmate of the Dungeon” that happened to inmates in prisons in
nineteenth century America. Because this was written later in the nineteenth
century, the prison of the story is advanced in that they have the inmates
working, and getting something in return that could be of monetary value. The
way the guards (or the warden in this case) treat the inmates is in line with
what they would have done before the penal system was imposed. The conditions
that the inmate was living in in ‘the dungeon’ were what a woman named Dorothea
Dix saw when she walked into a jail in 1841. “Within the confines of this jail
she observed prostitutes, drunks, criminals, retarded individuals, and the
mentally ill were all housed together in unheated, unfurnished, and
foul-smelling quarters,” (Bumb). She later went on to fight for the humane
rights of those inmates- especially those with mental illnesses and were less
able to control or take care of themselves. Prisons were not a main concern for
the government, whether national or state. The prisons were just to hold those
people in who could not be trusted freely in society. The people that Dix saw
were “confined in this Commonwealth in cages, closets, cellars, stalls, pens!
Chained, beaten with rods, lashed into obedience,” (ushistory.org). The guards
were there to feed the inmates and make sure they could not get out or cause
trouble. There were not any strict rules against harming someone in prison.
Prisoners were dehumanized and treated like animals. They could be mutilated,
branded, tortured, and, of course, put to death depending on the severity of
their crimes. Prisons would either believe in the Pennsylvania system, which was
24/7 solitary confinement for inmates with their bible, with the hope that they
would then become penitent, or they would believe in the Auburn approach, which
was an approach that allowed inmates to work, so that the prison would be
profitable. Those against the Pennsylvania method pointed out that constant solitary
confinement could easily lead to insanity. Most prisons quickly adopted the
Auburn method, simply for the profits. The inmates would work; however, they
would not get paid. The work would keep them busy and keep them out of trouble.
It was good experience for when they got out of prison, so that they could get
a job. Even though they needed their inmates to work, though, the people that
ran the prisons kept them in terrible conditions, where there was a lot of
overcrowding, disease, and abuse of the inmates. Because of the overcrowding,
convicts hardly ever served their full sentences- even if they were in for
life. The American penal system has come a long way from those conditions, but it
still follows the Auburn method of jailing, with solitary confinement only for
extra punishment for breaking the rules.
In “The Inmate of the
Dungeon,” the convict is completely dehumanized. He is only ever referred to as
“convict No- 14,208. He has no name. He is seen as angry, desperate, and dangerous.
Because of the fear of the guards, this weak man who has been living off of
bread and water for two years has a giant iron ball manacled to his ankles.
Because they don’t see him as a man- they simply see him as a threat. And the
warden, who is the man that whipped this prisoner in the first place, knows
that he did something that was immoral. He tries talking to the chairman when he
first calls for convict 14,208. He felt guilty for beating another man. The chairman
is the one who has sympathy for the convict; he is the one who ordered for the
manacles to be taken off. The chairman
knows that this man has been wronged, and he knows that it is because “there
are fifteen hundred human beings in this prison, and they are under the
absolute control of one man,” (Morrow). He realizes that this man is not, in
fact, dangerous, and decides to set him free. Because the true situation had
been brought to the knowledge of the warden shortly after the hearing, the warden
felt guilt over what he had done to someone who turned out to be innocent. He
realized how cruel he had been, because he had made a mistake. He could have
just given the inmate his share of tobacco and sent him off to work another
day. Instead, he decided not to believe him, or even listen to what he had to
say. He decided that he would no longer be allowed early release- or any
release at all. He beat him to the point that he passed out, and then kept him
in a dungeon for two years. It really was a horror story for this convict, who hadn’t
even committed his first crime purposefully. That warden will have to live with
that guilt for the rest of his life- which also makes it kind of a horror story
for him. This convict died, because of a tiny mistake, and what he decided to
do because of it.
The people who ran the
penal system in the nineteenth century obviously did not trust the people in
the prisons at the time. They also did not care about their health or
comfort. They did not see their
prisoners as normal human beings that could be trusted- that is what the warden
sees when he believes that this convict has already gotten his ration of tobacco
for the day. Although the convict probably stood up for his rights harder and
for longer than he had to, he had earned that ration of tobacco, and that other
prisoner had not. Whipping someone for something that they did not do is not
going to fix anything. Even if they did do whatever it was, whipping someone so
that they are in so much pain and have lost enough blood to pass out the way
this man did, that whipping is not going to teach them anything except for
cruelty. That guilt of knowing that he wrongfully harmed an innocent man is
going to weigh on that warden’s conscience for a long time. The history of the
penal system is part of the history of America, even if it is not a very pleasant
one. Anybody would be scared of a story like the one W. C. Morrow has written
with “The Inmate of the Dungeon.” This story can show us that people thought about
prison in the nineteenth century, and were scared of what could happen in
there. It can show us how inmates were treated- not as human beings, but as
wayward animals who were never to be trusted. Either way, this is part of our American
history, and is worth learning about.
Works Cited
Bumb, Jenn. “Dorothea Dix.” Faculty.webster.edu. Retrieved from: http://faculty.webster.edu/woolflm/dorotheadix.html.
Accessed 31 October 2016.
“The Early Years of American Law - Colonial
Freedom, Britain's Push For Greater Control, A New Start, A New Criminal Court
System” law.jrank.org. http://law.jrank.org/pages/11900/Early-Years-American-Law.html.
Accessed 31 October 2016.
Gerlach, Samantha. “Prison Life.” Umich.edu. http://www.umich.edu/~ece/student_projects/crime/prisonlife.htm.
Accessed 31 October 2016.
Morrow, W. C. “The Inmate of the Dungeon.” J.
B. Lippincott & Co, 1894. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/23177/23177-h/23177-h.htm.
Accessed 31 October 2016.
Oakland Tribune, 22 August, 1903, p 20. http://access.newspaperarchive.com.libraryproxy.uwp.edu:2048/us/california/oakland/oakland-tribune/1903/08-22/page-20?tag=Morrow+author&rtserp=tags/author?psi=14&pci=7&pl=morrow&ndt=by&py=1920,1910,1900,1890,1880,1870,1860,1850,1840&pey=1929,1919,1909,1899,1889,1879,1869,1859,1849.
Accessed 31 October 2016.
Oakland Tribune, 13 November, 1899, p 7. http://access.newspaperarchive.com.libraryproxy.uwp.edu:2048/us/california/oakland/oakland-tribune/1899/11-13/page-7?tag=W+c+Morrow+author&rtserp=tags/author?psi=14&pci=7&ndt=by&py=1854&pey=1923&pf=w-c&pl=morrow&psb=relavance.
Accessed 31 October 2016.
"Prison." Funk &
Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia (2016): 1p. 1. Funk &
Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia. Web. 31 Oct. 2016.
“Prison
and Asylum Reform.” Ushistory.org. http://www.ushistory.org/us/26d.asp.
Accessed 31 October 2016.
“Prison Life- 1865 to 1900.” Ancestry.com. http://www.ancestry.com/historicalinsights/prison-life-united-states-after-civil-war.
Accessed 31 October 2016.
“W. C. Morrow’s School.” Oakland Tribune, 16
August 1899, p. 4. http://access.newspaperarchive.com.libraryproxy.uwp.edu:2048/us/california/oakland/oakland-tribune/1899/08-16/page-4.
Accessed 31 October 2016.
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