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Prisons, Edward L. Ayers

History Faculty Publications

American penitentiaries developed in two distinct phases, and southern states participated in both. Virginia, Kentucky, Maryland, and Georgia built prisons before 1820, and between 1829 and 1842 new or newly reorganized institutions were established in Maryland, Tennessee, Georgia, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi, and Alabama. Only the Carolinas and Florida resisted the penitentiary before the Civil War.