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From England's Bridewell To America's Brides: Imprisoned Women, Shakespeare's Measure For Measure, And Empire, Alicia Meyer
From England's Bridewell To America's Brides: Imprisoned Women, Shakespeare's Measure For Measure, And Empire, Alicia Meyer
Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research
This thesis examines the experience of largely single women in London’s house of correction, Bridewell Prison, and argues that Bridewell’s prisoners, and the nature of their crimes, reveal the state’s desire for dependent, sexually controlled, yet ultimately productive women. Scholars have largely neglected the place of early modern women’s imprisonment despite its pervasive presence in the everyday lives of common English women. By examining the historical and cultural implications of early modern women and prison, this thesis contends that women’s prisons were more than simply establishments of punishment and reform. A closer examination of Bridewell’s philosophy and practices shows how …
An Incarcerated Republic : Prisoners, Reformers, And The Penitentiary In The United States, 1790-1860, Jonathan Nash
An Incarcerated Republic : Prisoners, Reformers, And The Penitentiary In The United States, 1790-1860, Jonathan Nash
Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)
The dissertation focuses on Pennsylvania and New York state prisons, and their inmates, during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. After the American War for Independence, politicians and reformers influenced by Christianity, Enlightenment philosophy, British prison reformers, and their personal experiences, replaced public punishments with incarceration at hard labor. Prisoners at the first Pennsylvania and New York state prisons maintained their pre-incarceration customs, formed communities of opposition, resisted confinement, and by the late 1810s and early 1820s, had largely taken control of the prisons. Reformers responded by formulating new architectural designs and stricter disciplinary regimens. At New York's antebellum …