Lexington Books
Pages: 202
•
Trim: 6¼ x 9¼
978-1-4985-4211-1 • Hardback • February 2017 • $117.00 • (£90.00)
978-1-4985-4213-5 • Paperback • May 2019 • $50.99 • (£39.00)
978-1-4985-4212-8 • eBook • February 2017 • $48.00 • (£37.00)
Erica Rhodes Hayden is assistant professor of history at Trevecca Nazarene University.
Theresa R. Jach is professor of history at Houston Community College.
Introduction, Erica Rhodes Hayden and Theresa R. Jach
Part I: Nineteenth-Century Prisons
Chapter 1: “Secret Horrors”: Enslaved Women and Children in the Louisiana State Penitentiary, 1833–1862, Brett Josef Derbes
Chapter 2: “In the Care of the Supposed Powerful State”: Women and Children in the Virginia Penitentiary, 1800–1883, Hilary L. Coulson
Chapter 3: “Letters from Inside: Prison Writings from Eastern State Penitentiary in the 19th Century,” Erica Rhodes Hayden
Part II: The Progressive Era
Chapter 4: “I thought if I got a chance I would do it”: Sexual Negotiation by Black Women Convicts in Texas, 1875–1915, Theresa R. Jach
Chapter 5: “I Beg for Your Mercy”: The Business of Black Women’s Bodies in the Carceral State, 1880s–1960s, Telisha Dionne Bailey
Part III: Twentieth-Century Experiences and Current Issues
Chapter 6: Discipline, Resistance, and Social Control at the Illinois State Reformatory for Women, 1930–62, L. Mara Dodge
Chapter 7: Making Mothers: Teaching the Virtues of Motherhood at Westfield Reformatory, 1950s–1960s, Ilse Denisse Catalan
Chapter 8: “It’s a Way to Get Out of Prison”: Writing and Teaching in Women’s Prisons,
Breea C. Willingham
This anthology examines the experiences of women in prisons in the US since the early 19th century. The first part of the book, which focuses on the early to mid-19th century, examines several themes, including how incarceration shaped motherhood, the experiences of slaves and formers slaves in the prison system, and efforts to resist the anonymizing effects of prison life in the post-Civil War period. The second part shifts its focus to the Progressive Era, chronicling both prison abuses and acts of resistance. The last part of the book highlights women’s prison experiences in the 20th and 21st centuries, paying particular attention to the regulation of female prisoners’ behavior, sexuality, and mothering choices as well as the politics of imprisoned women’s writing. The collection demonstrates not only the importance of gender but also race, class, geography, and other factors in shaping women’s prison experiences, providing much insight into how women’s experiences differed from men’s and how they differed from each other. Summing Up: Recommended. Undergraduate collections and above.
— Choice Reviews
This collection is a significant contribution to an understudied population. With a focus on individual experiences rather than policy or ideology, the contributors recover the voices of silenced women and document resistance, negotiation, and survival. These essays challenge scholars to re-evaluate the history of incarceration in the United States.
— Susan Branson, Syracuse University
The absolutely heartbreaking accounts of abuse and exploitation of women in prison are unforgettable. Incarcerated Women makes an important contribution to our understanding of how race, gender, and sexuality shaped punishment throughout US history.
— Jen Manion, Amherst College
Incarcerated Women: A History of Struggles, Oppression, and Resistance in American Prisons is a timely collection that examines an important topic. The collected essays illuminate the experiences of incarcerated women from the early nineteenth century to the early twenty-first century, a relatively understudied topic in the history of incarceration in the United States. If you wish to understand the racialized and gendered histories of mass incarceration, and how women navigated incarceration regimes in the past, this book is a valuable resource.
— Jonathan Nash, College of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University