Referring to page 181 of the diary, when prisoners were complaining about not getting fresh meat and vegetables, I wanted to take a look at how prisoners were fed in the 1850’s inside a prison. Was it true that they really did lack quality food?

             Sparse feeding throughout Prison’s in the 1850-time period served as a purpose of punishment. Broadly speaking, Prisons aimed to punish, and cutting back on the amount of food prisoners were given and the quality of it, was one way of punishing the prisoners. Restricting the portions of the food was said to be one of the most efficient ways of punishment. [1]Although there are many people who disagree with this way of punishment.

            The sparse feeding became a problem when prisoners entered society, and left prison because they were not physically and mentally strong enough. Malnourishment led to many diseases, and further health problems. Within the prisons there was extreme suffering of sick inmates do to malnourishment. Prisoners would often work until they fainted. 

            George Thompson, published Prison Life and Reflections in New York in 1848, where he detailed the mistreatment of prisoners, with the focus on inadequate food, and not enough of it. His focus was on the Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, although he saw scanty food rations in many prisons nearby. Thompson himself views the treatment of prisoners in the 1850s as “slavery where it doesn’t exist.” He is so bothered by the fact of how prisoners are treated so poorly, and how the mistreatment is only further hurting the prison systems and not teaching prisoners themselves good life lessons.[2]

[1]MILLER, IAN. "Food and Improvement in the Mid-nineteenth-century Institution." In Reforming Food in Post-Famine Ireland: Medicine, Science and Improvement, 1845–1922, 65-84. Manchester University Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt18mbfpv.8.

[2]Ostrowski, Carl. "Voices from Prison: Antebellum Memoirs of Incarceration." In Literature and Criminal Justice in Antebellum America, 150-75. Amherst; Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, 2016. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1hd199c.10.