Prison Society Research Articles

Tocqueville and Beaumont in Philadelphia: Their Interest in the Society of Friends

54Bulletin of Friends Historical Association merely a synonym for conscience? Or were they used with some foreshadowing of the very special sense in which Friends have come to employ them? The distinction is, of course, vital. As has been indicated, I have done the first mile of research; now let a better qualified person do the second. Tocqueville and Beaumont in Philadelphia: Their Interest in the Society of Friends By Arthur W. Silver* IN HIS scholarly study of Alexis de Tocqueville and Gustave de Beaumont in America1 George Wilson Pierson raises the question whether the two young men secured any letters of introduction from Lafayette, the Hero of Two Worlds and the cousin of Beaumont. These two men were totally unsympathetic with Lafayette politically after his part in the July Revolution of 1830, but realized the value of letters from him on any visit to America. They had therefore "pocketed their pride" and solicited letters which Lafayette apparently forgot to leave for young Beaumont to pick up.2 But eventually the Hero remembered and gave them at least one letter. It was addressed to Samuel R. Wood, the Warden of Eastern Penitentiary.3 This letter was found in a scrapbook collected by Wood's niece, Mary Richardson.4 It is dated March 28, 1831, only five * Arthur W. Silver is a member of the Department of History, Temple University. 1 Tocqueville and Beaumont in America (New York, 1938) . 2 See Pierson, p. 36. A frantic letter by someone in Lafayette's household to James Fenimore Cooper, then in Paris, on behalf of letters for the young men is the only intervention cited. 3 Samuel R. Wood (1791-1858), a Friend, was long a member of the Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons. He was also a member of the board of commissioners which built Eastern Penitentiary, and was selected by the Prison Society to lobby with the legislature in 1828-29 to secure the final adoption of the "Pennsylvania system." He was Warden from 1829 to 1840. (Data from family papers; Harry Elmer Barnes The Evolution of PenoL·gy in Pennsylvania [Indianapolis, 1927] p. 159; N. K. Teeters, They Were in Prison [Philadelphia, 1937]. My wife, Marion Rhoads Silver, has his portrait with a picture of Eastern Penitentiary in the background. 4 It is in the possession of her great-niece, my wife. Notes and Documents55 days before the two young men were to sail on the Havre. How well acquainted Lafayette and Wood were is unknown. The letter seems, however, to be little more than a mere formal introduction. It was folded, but without the usual outer address, on a single sheet of paper and reads as follows: Paris, March 28, 1831. My dear Sir: Permit me to introduce to you MM. de Tocqueville and Beaumont two french Gentlemen who Have offered to go over to the United States in quest of information relative to the penitentary Reforming System. Their plan Has Been adopted By Government Under whose auspices they undertake the philanthropic Voyage, to whom can I Better Recommend them than to you, my dear Sir, to your patronage, your lessons, your experience, your Benevolent High minded feelings? I am Happy in the opportunity to protest the affectionate [?] regards of Your sincere friend Lafayette. There actually seems to have been some rivalry between two groups of philanthropists of Philadelphia, each trying to monopolize the attention of the two young French investigators . These two factions were the theorists and the practical men, but both groups were equally enthusiastic over the new Eastern Penitentiary. Which group succeeded is not clear. But Samuel R. Wood, one of the practical men, was so eager to make their acquaintance that he went to the French Consul a week before the arrival of the young Frenchmen and asked "to be notified the very instant of our arrival in this city," according to a letter of Tocqueville to his sister.5 In any case, they became well acquainted with him and seem to have not only consulted him about various matters within his professional purview, but also to have found in him an interesting source of information about the Society of Friends...

One-Hundred Sixty-Fourth Annual Report Pennsylvania Prison Society

One-Hundred Sixty-Fourth Annual Report Pennsylvania Prison Society

164th Annual Business Meeting Pennsylvania Prison Society

164th Annual Business Meeting Pennsylvania Prison Society

Pennsylvania Prison Society Receipts and Disbursements

Pennsylvania Prison Society Receipts and Disbursements

Eligibility Requirements and Intake Practices as an Integral Part of the Helping Process in a Prison Society

Eligibility Requirements and Intake Practices as an Integral Part of the Helping Process in a Prison Society

Annual Business Meeting of the Pennsylvania Prison Society

Annual Business Meeting of the Pennsylvania Prison Society

A Student Worker's Use of a New Definition of a Private Prison Society's Structure To Strengthen the Sponsorship of a Man On Parole

A Student Worker's Use of a New Definition of a Private Prison Society's Structure To Strengthen the Sponsorship of a Man On Parole

Minutes of the Annual Meeting of the Pennsylvania Prison Society

Minutes of the Annual Meeting of the Pennsylvania Prison Society

One Hundred Sixty-First Annual Report of the Pennsylvania Prison Society

One Hundred Sixty-First Annual Report of the Pennsylvania Prison Society

The Economic Organisation of a P.O.W. Camp

AFTER allowance has been made for abnormal circumstances, the social institutions, ideas and habits of groups in the outside world are to be found reflected in a Prisoner of War Camp. It is an unusual but a vital society. Camp organisation and politics are matters of real concern to the inmates, as affecting their present and perhaps their future existences. Nor does this indicate any loss of proportion. No one pretends that camp matters are of any but local importance or of more than transient interest, but their importance there is great. They bulk large in a world of narrow horizons and it is suggested that any distortion of values lies rather in the minimisation than in the exaggeration of their importance. Human affairs are essentially practical matters and the measure of immediate effect on the lives of those directly concerned in them is to a large extent the criterion of their importance at that time and place. A prisoner can hold strong views on such subjects as whether or not all tinned meats shall be issued to individuals cold or be centrally cooked, without losing sight of the significance of the Atlantic Charter. One aspect of social organisation is to be found in economic activity, and this, along with other manifestations of a group existence, is to be found in any P.O.W. camp. True, a prisoner is not dependent on his exertions for the provision of the necessaries, or even the luxuries of life, but through his economic activity, the exchange of goods and services, his standard of material comfort is considerably enhanced. And this is a serious matter to the prisoner: he is not playing at shops even though the small scale of the transactions and the simple expression of comfort and wants in terms of cigarettes and jam, razor blades and writing paper, make the urgency of those needs difficult to appreciate, even by an ex-prisoner of some three months' standing. Nevertheless, it cannot be too strongly emphasised that economic activities do not bulk so large in prison society as they do in the larger world. There can be little production; as has been said the prisoner is independent of his exertions for the provision of the necessities and luxuries of life; the emphasis lies in exchange and the media of exchange. A prison camp is not to be compared with the seething crowd of higglers in a street market, any more than it is to be compared with the economic inertia of a family dinner table. Naturally then, entertainment, academic and literary interests, games and discussions of the other world bulk larger in everyday Life than they do in the life of more normal societies. But it would be

Book Reviews: WORLD PENAL SYSTEMS A survey by NEGLEY K. TEETERS Sponsored and Distributed by the Pennsylvdnia Prison Society, Philadelphia, 1944

Book Reviews: WORLD PENAL SYSTEMS A survey by NEGLEY K. TEETERS Sponsored and Distributed by the Pennsylvdnia Prison Society, Philadelphia, 1944

One Hundred Fifty-Seventh Annual Report of the Pennsylvania Prison Society

One Hundred Fifty-Seventh Annual Report of the Pennsylvania Prison Society

Pennsylvania Prison Society Receipts and Disbursements Year Ended May 31, 1941

Pennsylvania Prison Society Receipts and Disbursements Year Ended May 31, 1941

Program and Policy of Acting Committee Pennsylvania Prison Society 1942

Program and Policy of Acting Committee Pennsylvania Prison Society 1942

Reviews of Books

Book reviewed in this article:Social Aspects of Crime Between the Wars. By Dr. Hermann Mannheim.War and Crime. By Hermann Mannheim.Penal Reform in England. Edited by L. Radzinowicz, M.A., IX.D., and J. W. Cecil Turner, M.A., LL.B.Punishment and Social Structure. By Dr. Georg Rusche and Dr. Otto Kircheimer.The Way to Justice. By Heber L. Hart, K.C., LL.D.Jail Journey. By Jim Phelan.My Prison House. By James Leigh.Attorney General's Survey of Release Procedures. Vol. 5. Prisons. Department of Justice, Washington. 1939.Parole with Honor. By Wilbur La Roe, Jr. (Princeton University Press.Juvenile Delinquency: A Comparative Study of the position in Liverpool and England and Wales. By J. H. Bagot, M.A., with an Introduction by D. Caradog Jones.The Ancestral Child. The Fifth Clarke Hall Lecture. By Margery Fry, LL.D., J.P.The Criminality of Youth. By Thorsten Sellen.Handbook of American Institutions for Delinquent Juveniles. Published by The Osborn Association, Inc. Edited by William B. Cox, Executive Secretary. Vol. I: West North Central States. 1938. Joint Editor, F. Lovell Bixby, Ph.D. Vol. II: Kentucky‐Tennessee. 1940. Joint Editors: Joseph A. Shelly and George C. Minard. Vol. III: Pacific Coast States. Joint Editor: Joseph A. Shelly. 1940.The Difficult Child and the Problem of Discipline. C. W. Valentine.They Were in Prison. A History of the Pennsylvania Prison Society, 1787–1937, formerly The Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons. By Negley K. Teeters, Temple University. Introduction by Harry Elmer Barnes and a concluding chapter by Albert G. Fraser. Seventy‐five illustrations.Inquest. By S. Ingleby Oddie.The Court is Sitting. By Ernest W. Pettifer, Clerk to the West Riding Justices.

Luncheon Meeting on Third Degree

A luncheon meeting of the Acting Committee of the Pennsylvania Prison Society was arranged at the Manufacturers and Bankers Club in Philadelphia on May 22nd, for the purpose of discussing Third Degree. Dr. N. K. Teeters, Professor of Criminology at Temple University and a member of the Executive Committee of the Society presided. Hon. Raymond MaeNeille, Judge of Common Pleas Court No. 3 of Philadelphia, and William A. Gray, Esq., noted trial lawyer of Philadelphia, were the speakers. Dr. Edwin R. Keedy now Dean of the Law School of Pennsylvania University commented briefly on the subject. The following is an account of that meeting:

They Were in Prison: A History of the Pennsylvania Prison Society, 1787-1937, Formerly the Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons. Negley K. Teeters

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewsThey Were in Prison: A History of the Pennsylvania Prison Society, 1787-1937, Formerly the Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons. Negley K. Teeters Margaret CreechMargaret Creech Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Social Service Review Volume 12, Number 1Mar., 1938 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/632193 Views: 1Total views on this site Copyright 1938 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Book Review: They were in Prison, A History of the Pennsylvania Prison Society 1787 - 1937 By Negley K. Teeters. The John C. Winston Co. 1937; 541 pp. $3.00

Book Review: They were in Prison, A History of the Pennsylvania Prison Society 1787 - 1937 By Negley K. Teeters. The John C. Winston Co. 1937; 541 pp. $3.00

Pennsylvania Prison Society President's Report

Pennsylvania Prison Society President's Report

The Pennsylvania Prison Society. A Century and a Half of Penal Reform

In May of this year an organization located in Philadelphia quietly celebrated its one hundred fiftieth birthday. Known for the first hundred years of its distinguished existence by a long ponderous title, THE PHILADELPHIA SOCIETY FOR ALLEVIATING THE MISERIES OF PUBLIC PRISONS, it is better known to contemporaries as the PENNSYLVANIA PRISON SOCIETY. Its purpose today is substantially that for which it was originally founded: to assist the prisoner, especially the friendless prisoner. Taking for its motto, I was in prison and ye came unto me, the organization was founded by thirty-seven leading citizens of Philadelphia who met at the home of one of its members, Isaac Parrish, on May 8, 1787, and dedicated themselves to the arduous task of cleaning up the local gaols. Today this same organization is distinguished by the fact that it is the oldest prison society in the world and probably the oldest private philanthropic organization in this country. The preamble of the constitution adopted at the first meeting reads as follows: