From Newgate to Dannemora: The Rise of the Penitentiary in New York, 1796-1848 (review)

120Quaker History From Newgate to Dannemora: TL· Rise of the Penitentiary in New York, 17961848 . By W. David Lewis. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press. 1965. x, 311 pages. $6.75. Historians of nineteenth-century reform movements have given but scant attention to the cause of prison reform. This book contributes substantially to our knowledge of that long-neglected area of the past. It is a study of both the ideas and practices of penology, and it places them in their national and international setting. The very idea of a penitentiary constituted a reform, and had a long history of development in European thought. Although they were only one of a number of groups working for reform, Friends in England and the United States contributed to the acceptance of the penitentiary as a substitute for the liberal use of brutal corporal punishment and frequent resort to the death penalty. One Friend, Thomas Eddy, was largely responsible for the establishment of a penitentiary system in New York and served for seven years as prison agent or warden of Newgate, the first such institution in the state. Eddy, like many other reformers who assumed positions of responsibility, frequently found it necessary to compromise his ideals and even used force to put down prison riots. For a variety of reasons the optimistic philosophy of Thomas Eddy was rejected by many of New York's later prison officials. Its most famous penitentiary , Auburn, gained worldwide attention for its harsh discipline of enforced silence at all times and became the model for many other institutions. At Sing Sing too, brutal discipline was refined to an art under the administration of Elam Lynds, who placed complete faith in the lash as an instrument of control. In addition to a prevailing point of view which assumed that brutality was necessary in treating with criminals, Lynds and his contemporaries worked at a time when prisons were expected to be wholly self-supporting. In practice, and with some important exceptions, prison discipline remained extremely harsh and uncreative throughout the nineteenth century. Then, as now, there were very few people who were concerned to protect the rights of convicted criminals simply because they were fellow human beings. On a number of counts this is an excellent study. It relates attitudes towards criminals to the prevailing social and political environment. It is based upon a variety of materials which are discussed in a very useful essay on the sources. Finally, the well-organized narrative is presented in a clear and readable style. Wilmington CollegeLarry Gara J Believe. ... By Kathleen Lonsdale. The 18th Arthur Stanley Eddington Memorial Lecture. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. 1964. 50 pages. $0.95. Like other lectures in this series, / Believe . . . carries on Eddington's concern to make the methods of seeking scientific and religious truth more compatible. He believed that philosophical unity grows with each new scientific discovery, rather than the reverse. Kathleen Lonsdale, speaking autobiographically, shows how her being a child of an agnostic father and a fundamentalist mother created a tension that made her a persistent seeker and eventually, a convinced Friend. Even though ...