Liberty's Prisoners. Jen Manion
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in general.” Proud of the impact of their work on others and themselves, Rush declared, “One thing is certain, that if no alleviation is given by them to human misery, men grow good by attempting it.”13 This emergence of feeling in the nineteenth century was vital. As Jan Lewis has argued, “To show feeling was to prove oneself fully alive.” But excessive compassion could be destructive. Reformers embraced opportunities to learn about the hardship of others but resisted getting drawn in too closely to others’ pain.14
The pardon became an important site of humanitarian intervention for this generation of reformers beginning in 1787. From this moment onward, men representing benevolent organizations would visit the prison and report their assessment of physically suffering individuals. They received petitions from prisoners begging for release and would determine whether or not they were worthy of recommendation to the governor for pardon. The system actually provided countless opportunities for strange men with authority granted by the governor to meddle in the lives of inmates—both men and women, predominantly poor. They would identify those individuals whom they deemed worthy of better care, support, or release. They would make formal recommendations to the governor or Supreme Executive Council and informal offerings of blankets, clothing, food, and prayers.15 The creation and expansion of institutionalized authority were accompanied by an increase in individual attention for specific prisoners from interested reformers who might mediate between them and the increasingly anonymous state. The organization’s impact was extraordinary. Shortly after its creation, PSAMPP was flooded with petitions from prisoners. Most petitions represented individual prisoners, although occasionally groups authored them as well. Prisoners pleaded with courts, reformers, and even the Supreme Executive Council of the state concerning a wide range of issues, from their inability to pay fines to their treatment at the hands of jailers. Individuals begged for forgiveness of court-imposed fines or prison fees that all too often were the only thing standing between them and freedom.
Men and women in prison articulated their needs in slightly different ways. By its very nature, the petition required recognition of one’s dependency and helplessness. For women, the genre was fitting—at least in theory. Just as gender norms requiring female dependency may have made it easy for reformers to assist female inmates, those same roles may have made it harder for women in prison—disproportionately impoverished—to pass the “character” tests rooted in social norms that were also raced and classed. PSAMPP concluded, for example, that Catherine Haas did not deserve their intervention because she was “of a bad character and since last visit was convicted and sentenced to hard labour in the work house.”16 For women, “bad character” was a catchall phrase for a wide range of behaviors, including cursing, prostitution, simple vagrancy, drunkenness, petty theft, or not showing proper deference to authorities. For men, an expression of submission might garner praise from reformers while undermining the men’s claim to citizenship in the new republic. The core qualities of the liberal subject—individual agency, accountability, and responsibility—were beyond the reach of men in prison, who were forced to beg their betters for help.17 The petitions served as highly gendered narratives of dependency.18 This vulnerable class of people negotiated dominant expectations regarding family life and gender roles while seeking the assistance of the reformers.
Progressive reformers did not have to look far for evidence of the harsh cruelty of the state, or of their own benevolence. Prisoner Elizabeth Donovan begged the reformers to rescue her from the “hard-hearted” keeper by “throwing” herself on their “bounty and goodness.”19 Elizabeth appealed to them through the lens of their growing philosophical commitment to a humanitarian sensibility that had been until recently a feminine pursuit. Donovan’s insistence that the reformers were the kind of virtuous gentlemen who could override the authority of the state (embodied by the wicked keeper) fueled their understanding of reform’s mission and affirmed their own sense of benevolence. Petitions further served to defend and justify penal authority in the first place. Prisoners did not call on revolutionary principles of justice or liberty or democracy in requesting assistance. Rather, they appealed to the reformer’s individual humanity, mercy, kindness, or charity.
Female inmates had to navigate dominant views of motherhood in their appeals. Susey Mines’ petition was filled with references to her family, although not the kind reformers would want to hear; a republican mother she was not. Mines blamed her daughter for her imprisonment and claimed she had no idea her daughter was stealing and then storing the items at her home. Mines wrote that she “would not permit her daughter or her goods inside of her doors” if she knew her daughter was a thief. Mines’s situation was not unusual, as many women were charged with possessing, receiving, or selling stolen goods rather than with actual theft. Once in prison, Mines wrote of her suffering in an exceptionally descriptive way, a practice more common among female than male petitioners. Mines emphasized the survival of her family and based her request for assistance on their needs. She stated that she had “a family [of] small distress[ed] children [to] provide for which are now in a most suffering condition and starved and cold winter just approaching,” and appealed to the “merciful kindness and humanity” of the reformers to help her and prevent her and her family “from perishing this winter.” Like other women who raised the needs of their family in petitions, this mother named children but never mentioned a husband.20
The number of references to women who appeared to be sole providers for themselves and their families is striking. Sarah Collier cited the distress of her children as the primary basis for her appeal and explicitly referenced their dependence on her. Speaking of herself in the third person, Collier wrote, “She humbly hopes that your honour will grant her liberation as her confinement will only serve to increase her distress as her children are almost helpless and chiefly depending on their parent[’s] industry.”21 Women believed that motherhood was the right chord to strike with male reformers who held the key to their freedom. The concept of republican motherhood was already circulating, carving out an important role for women’s domestic leadership in shaping the polity. Women like Collier risked judgment of failure about their parenting skills and life choices, but they still believed drawing attention to their role as mothers was their best hope in convincing their visitors to recommend them for a pardon.
Elizabeth Elliot wrote to the Supreme Executive Council of the state requesting remission of fines for her conviction for selling liquor without a license. Elliot did not claim innocence but begged remission from the ten-pound fine. She probably supported herself and her family through her tippling house. Though she did not present the suffering of her children as the basis for her request, she did end her appeal by stating, “Your unfortunate petitioner is a poor widow who hath a family of five small children.”22 In cases such as Elizabeth’s, it was clear that she did not have a husband. The absence of references to male providers signals several things. One, women without the economic support or political authority of men were more likely to be imprisoned. Two, female petitioners were more successful in appealing to the sympathies of reformers if they presented themselves as single women with children. In the absence of a named husband, progressive men would assert their own patriarchal benevolence, offering financial or legal relief to women who were failed by other men.
Petitioners exhibited varying degrees of deference, with women’s petitions generally more excessive in their demonstrations of both suffering and submission. In November 1787, prisoner Catharine Usoons sent a letter to John Morrison, a coppersmith and charter member of PSAMPP. Her petition deployed themes that would resonate with her male audience by deferring to Morrison, emphasizing her own vulnerability and dependency, and highlighting her role as a mother. She pleaded, “To your honour the dismal and deplorable situation I now labour under with my young infant at my breast, have not any cloaths to put on and am almost starved … I hope your honour will take it into your charitable consideration as it will never lay in my power to pay the restitution lay’d on me wile I lay in Jail and I have been here 18 months and suffer’d inconsiderable, and I am afraid myself and child will starve this winter without your honour.”23 Catharine’s appeal offered PSAMPP members a range of ways to help her. Short of actually paying the fees for her release, PSAMPP could see to it that she received some clothing—at least the standard shift—and adequate food. Written expressions of submission by women reinforced their appropriate position vis-à-vis men