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“Mind-Forg’d Manacles”: The Mechanics of Control Inside Late-Nineteenth Century Tasmanian Charitable Institutions
- Journal of Social History
- George Mason University Press
- Volume 43, Number 4, Summer 2010
- pp. 1045-1063
- 10.1353/jsh.0.0346
- Article
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In the second half of the nineteenth century a conservative paternalistic benevolence permeated middle-class thought, leading to demonization and criminalisation of pauper invalids, many of whom were ex-convicts. This paper examines some aspects of the mechanics of the charitable system as practiced in nineteenth-century Tasmania through an analysis of life inside the institution. It examines the institutional environment, the conditions which inmates were subject to, and how institutions implemented a regime of coerced labour, strict discipline, confinement, surveillance, regimentation and punishment as a means to control the lives of pauper invalids.