Jen Manion, Liberty’s Prisoners: Carceral Culture in Early America (2015)
This week’s post is in response to a book I was assigned for a class assessment. It is therefore more formal in its manner. It is already a challenge to get through a book a week in addition to class assignments so that is why this one is a good middle ground. The reviews of the book which also informed the post are all linked at the bottom of the post.
Jen Manion’s work Liberty’s Prisoners focuses on the creation of the first penitentiary in Philadelphia in 1790. More than this however, it identifies the variety of social factors that impacted the relative success of the penitentiary system and the culture that surrounded it. The title alone indicates this look beyond the structure to the systems culture. Starting with a look at gender, Manion observes how the penitentiary movement impacted social order, “moral reformation served as ideological basis…labor provided its economic justification…But the nature of the work also produced its own ideologies, including the fortification of a heterosexual political economy” (Manion, p.18). Her suggestion of the movement reinforcing the social hierarchy in its hetero-normative structure extends into the following chapter which more predominantly focuses on racial discrimination. The suggestion that the ‘imposition of sentimental masculinity’ not only inspired resentment in prison staff but also a ‘relationship of dependency’ really underlines the message of Liberty’s Prisoners (Manion, p.84). In all these aspects it is the elite white men that occupy the top tiers of the hierarchy. The calls that she identifies for women to return to the domestic sphere are indicative of the hierarchy she claims emerged around the prison system. Furthermore, Manion roots this suggested state in treatment of the poor and a reorienting of political life. The society that these changes took place in saw situations such that “Women on the streets who could be ‘spoken for’ by respectable men were not imprisoned, while single women who lived by the informal economy were frequently charged and sent to prison.” (Manion, p.91) These structures are all related to value systems and Manion’s chapter focuses on issues such as sex alongside poverty as areas in which women’s empowerment was possible. This liberty was however, extensively reserved for those within the upper reaches of the traditional society. Those at the top of the hierarchy largely avoided interactions with the prison system. Those that contravened the new norms were at risk of imprisonment and thus prisoners of this new liberty.
The merits of the book are espoused by all the reviews, there was not one which directly challenged the contents of the work. However, Ashley Rubin offers the most scathing opinion on the contents by suggesting that, ‘virtually every insight in this book has been discussed by another author, but Manion does not explain how her work differs from theirs.’ (Rubin p.369) This seems at odds with Saxton’s review in lauding the new examination of the presence of women and impact of gender. Saxton’s greater positivity reflects the journal she writes in being focused on women and gender. It is also though an expansion of Rubin’s conclusions. While Manion does sometimes fail to consider the prior scholarship the observance of women’s role in this culture marks the work apart from the predominant racial or class-based approaches. The more general approach of Rubin’s review therefore suggests that as a synthetic work the book is a much more powerful perspective on prison’s emergence (Rubin, p.370). While the two reviews therefore may seem to differ in their conclusions about the book they identify similar aspects of the work as laudable. Saxton does address the racial elements of Manion’s arguments as well as the influence of family and suggests that as a method of weaving in multiple aspects of societal roles and culture this offers a newer perspective that Rubin sees more as a synthesis of prior scholarship (Saxton, p.11). This is where Bell’s review substantiates both with the suggestion that ‘Liberty’s Prisoners is a welcome complement to Rothman and Meranze.’ (Bell, p.205) It is not the contents of the book that are challenged but rather whether it offers an original perspective that moves beyond just synthesizing previous studies. To Rubin and Bell Liberty’s Prisoners needs to be utilized in collaboration with other works while to Saxton the work offers a meaningful and holistic insight on its own.
The reception of the book while generally positive also highlights the scholarly attention to the early American penal system. Many of the reviews offer their own understanding of the environment that Manion discussed along with the reflection of carceral culture elsewhere in early America outside of just Philadelphia. Bell does address that as a study of Philadelphia specifically the work ‘easily surpasses those earlier studies’ especially in the approaches to gender (Bell, p.205). Conversely, Rubin in the more negative tone that her review takes suggests that the generalizations Manion employs detract from the otherwise interesting conclusions (Rubin, p.368). Again, drawing back to Rubin’s assertion that Manion fails to acknowledge previous work, Rubin documents that evolution of scholarly work on the topic. Furthermore, Rubin states that by treating ‘Walnut Street Prison, the almshouse, Arch Street Prison, Moyamensing Prison, and Eastern State Penitentiary’ interchangeably Manion downplays the significant differences (Rubin, p.368). Within Rubin’s review the full extent of literature available on prison reform and culture is illuminated. Rubin and Bell both acknowledge the significant external literature that informs understanding of early American ‘carceral culture’, the importance of Foucault in this discussion of general carceral culture among others is perhaps an extension of the previous discussion on whether the book offers a new perspective or simply synthesizes previous information (Rubin, p.368 & Bell p.201). The reviews effectively point the reader toward other works that would substantiate Liberty’s Prisoners and in doing so highlight how significant the variety of scholarly work that exists on carceral culture is.
Liberty’s Prisoners has a variety of reviews in terms of which aspect of the work is focused on. The merits of the book are in its weaving of multiple roles and aspects of carceral culture together. This is addressed in the reviews selected but they do diverge on which aspect of the book, whether it is gender, race or social standing. The nature of Manion’s work being a holistic approach with a focus on gender places it in range of critique of historiographical nature or generalizations. This is the approach that Rubin took with Saxton lauding the focus on sex and gender and Bell marking perhaps a middle ground between the two (Saxton, p.10). Furthermore, Bell does highlight that the resources Manion does use extends beyond previous scholarship that focused on similar areas of carceral culture (Bell, p.206).
Bibliography
Bell, Richard. ‘Liberty’s Prisoners: Carceral Culture in Early America by Jen Manion (Review)’, Early American Literature 52 (2017), pp.201-206
Kahan, Paul. ‘Liberty’s Prisoners: Carceral Culture in Early America by Jen Manion (Review)’, The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 142 (2018), p.118
Saxton, Martha. ‘Liberty’s Prisoners: Carceral Culture in Early America by Jen Manion (Review)’, The Women’s Review of Books 33 (2016), pp.10-11
Fletcher-Brown, Charlene. ‘Liberty’s Prisoners: Carceral Culture in Early America by Jen Manion (Review)’, Register of the Kentucky Historical Society 115 (2017), pp.419-421
Rubin, Ashley, ‘Liberty’s Prisoners: Carceral Culture in Early America by Jen Manion (Review)’, Journal of the Early Republic 37 (2017), pp.367-370
The Weekly Book Report 