'Superstition will add to its horrors': The early American penitentiary and its Gothic shadow
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Fiddler, Michael 
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0695-6770
(2011)
'Superstition will add to its horrors': The early American penitentiary and its Gothic shadow.
The Howard Journal of Criminal Justice, 50 (5).
pp. 465-477.
ISSN 0265-5527 (Print), 1468-2311 (Online)
(doi:10.1111/j.1468-2311.2011.00689.x)
Abstract
In relation to the early American penal experiment, we might imagine an unbroken line of development that takes us from William Penn's code of 1682 through to the monumental structures of the Jacksonian era. These were to be sources of civic pride and would locate the penitentiary as a utopic site (Rothman). However, at each stage of this evolution of imprisonment, there was a Gothic undercurrent. In analysing these early penitentiaries, their architecture and the popular literature relating to them, we can begin to unpack the ongoing construction of the ‘place myth’ of the prison within the penal imagination.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Additional Information: | [1] Issue published online: 11 NOV 2011. Article first published online: 11 NOV 2011. [2] Published in: The Howard Journal of Criminal Justice - Special Issue: Historical Perspectives on Punishment and Prisons: Representations and Realities: Edited by Helen Johnston and Michael Fiddler. Volume 50, Issue 5, December 2011. |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | prison architecture, prison literature, Gothic |
| Subjects: | H Social Sciences > HN Social history and conditions. Social problems. Social reform K Law > K Law (General) |
| Pre-2014 Departments: | School of Humanities & Social Sciences School of Humanities & Social Sciences > Department of Law & Criminology |
| Related URLs: | |
| Last Modified: | 14 Oct 2016 09:19 |
| URI: | http://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/7870 |
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