A big part of what keeps me posting on a regular basis is the feedback that I get from readers. I also love it when I get questions that make me think or lead me to do more research. A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post about corporal punishment and torture in early U.S. penitentiaries. It got a very big response judging from the number of views that it has amassed so far. I’m not sure why so many people seem interested in this aspect of prisons and frankly I do not want to think too deeply about it. I hope it is because people are deeply disturbed by these images and ideas. I want this to be true.

Anyway, a reader asked if I had any examples of the media of the time (19th century) inveighing against prison torture practices. In fact, I do. I have an original article from Harper’s Weekly dated December 18, 1858 titled “Torture and Homicide in an American State Prison.” I purchased the original article as a collector’s item mainly because of the illustrations that are included. I dug it out of storage earlier this week and will quote some of it below to illustrate how some media outlets covered prison torture in the 19th and early 20th centuries:

“We now present a far more fearful picture of the mismanagement of our public institutions for the confinement and correction of criminals. On 2nd inst. a convict named More, imprisoned in the State Prison at Auburn, was showered to death by prison officials. The circumstances of the case are simply as follows:

The convict, More, was a negro. He is certified to have been a man of naturally pleasant temper, but violent when crossed. On 1st inst. he was said to have been in a bad humor; he was seen, or is said to have been seen, to sharpen a knife, and to mutter threats against someone; on the strength of which he was, on 2nd inst. seized by several keepers or deputy-keepers of the State Prison, and by them dragged toward the shower-bath. Like most negroes, he entertained a lively fear of cold. He knew that the water of the shower-bath would be very cold indeed; and, after vainly appealing to the feelings of his captors to release him, he broke away from them and fled — be it remarked — to the shop where he was in the habit of working. At the door of the shop a convict arrested him; a keeper and his assistants swiftly followed: he was dragged by main force, and after many violent struggles, to the shower-bath; all the water that was in the tank — amounting to from three to five barrels, the quantity is uncertain — was showered upon him in spite of his piteous cries; a few minutes after his release from the bath he fell prostrate, was carried to his cell, and died in five minutes.

It is the homicide which we this week illustrate. The use of the shower-bath as a means of coercing criminals into submission to the orders of prison authorities began to be general about the year 1845. In that year a convict at the Auburn State Prison was whipped by order of competent authority, and died under the lash. The public indignation which was aroused by the event led to the abolition of whipping as a punishment in the prisons of the State of New York. It was preserved in other States, as, for instance, in Connecticut, in which State Prison wardens are authorized to this day to administer stripes — not over ten in number — to refractory prisoners. But in New York the cat was disused, and the shower-bath reigned in its stead.”

The article goes on for several pages to describe how the shower-bath works and to underscore several other forms of punishment that prisoners are subjected to at Auburn Prison. The expose also relies on research by leading experts about the physical and psychological effects of being subjected to the shower-bath. The article is definitely of its time as it distinguishes between whites who are believed to better be able to withstand the torture of the shower-bath and blacks who are seen as constitutionally unable to endure the practice. If you are interested in the history of American prisons, the article is worth reading and I am sure that it can be accessed through any library.

Below is an image of the shower-bath apparatus:

The article ends with these words:

“An inquest has been held on the body of the negro. Eight men composed the jury, six of whom are said to have been prison contractors. They refused to allow the prison physician to deliver his evidence, as he wished; and found the absurd verdict that the man’s death had been ‘hastened’ by the use of the shower-bath. It is clear that if any notice is to be taken of this poor convict’s death the District Attorney must move in the matter. It remains to be seen whether he will do so; or whether the civilization of the State of New York is to be disgraced by the torture and homicide, by State officials, of a poor convict in a State prison.”