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Institutional Responses to Poverty and Prostitution in Philadelphia 1800-1830

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Institutional Responses to Poverty and Prostitution in Philadelphia 1800-1830 “Come to Virtue ”: Institutional Responses to Poverty and Prostitution In Philadelphia 1800-1830 ____________________________________________________________ A Thesis Presented to The Faculty of the Department of History The Colorado College ___________________________________________________________ By Alexander Langstaff May 2014 Honor Code Upheld. Table of Contents Chapter 1. Introduction & Social Control in Perspective 3 Chapter 2. Poverty in Philadelphia 13 Chapter 3. The Criminality of Deviance: Poverty and Prostitution as Vice 28 Chapter 4. Case Study: The Philadelphia Almshouse 40 Chapter 5. Case Study: The Magdalen Society of Philadelphia 52 Chapter 6. Concluding Reflections/Conclusion 82 Appendix 85 Bibliography 88 2 Introduction Amidst the folios of fraying papers marked with scribbled handwriting, ink blotches and mysterious notations for the Philadelphia Magdalen Society lies a mysterious white box in the grand reading room at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Inside the box is a large brass seal; it is heavy to hold and slightly tarnished with wear, fitting perfectly into a small stamp machine beside it. The seal’s elegant craftsmanship shimmers in the dull reading room light despite its use and age. It reads, “Come to Virtue” and proudly identifies the Magdalen Society of Philadelphia as incorporated in 1802.1 Latent with symbolism, two Hellenistic figures act out a scene beneath these words that embody the prevailing narrative of redemptive moral reform: a sagacious man beckons the other, female figure to a building identified as the “Asylum”. This crying, hunched female confidante is the Magdalen that is to be redeemed- the embodiment of the modus vivendi underpinning the Magdalen Society’s fascinating existence as a 19th century reformatory organization. In contrast to her bearded advisor, one notices that the woman lies on the fringe of the image, beneath a dead, leafless tree: she appears a marginal figure in the shadow of the institution. The Magdalen Society was founded in 1800 to reform prostitutes but became historically important as the administrator of the nation’s first private asylum for rehabilitating ‘fallen women’ from 1807-1908. For the first quarter of the 19th century, it specifically sought to provide “refuge and improvement of such Females as have been seduced from the paths of Virtue, and who are desirous to return thereunto” in Philadelphia before its mission 1 See: Appendix 1 3 changed to sheltering ‘wayward’ women. 2 The complex meanings behind ‘refuge’ and ‘improvement’ evident in the brass seal vignette constitute the subject of this thesis. A short walk from the asylum was Philadelphia’s public almshouse. Founded much earlier in the 18th century, it catered to the “reception of the poor”3 Both institutions aspired to bring marginal groups of society “to virtue” but did so in extremely different ways with equally varying degrees of success. I seek to compare poverty and prostitution as theoretical and institutional corollaries of early 19th century urban society. The underlying intention of this comparison is to relate poverty and prostitution as separate, but concurrent, categories of immorality in the early American consciousness. In doing so, I will explore three central questions: i) How were varieties of social marginality framed in the antebellum city through philanthropic institutions? ; ii) Is the historiographical social control thesis for institutional ‘containment’ of societal deviants consistent with the experiences of those within such institutions?; and, iii) How successful were private and public institutions in their reformatory aspirations during the early national period? In comparing and contrasting poverty and prostitution in Philadelphia as a heuristic foil for these questions, I will concentrate on welfare institutions, for their prerogative was articulating and actualizing these categories into reformatory principles of normalcy. To this end, I hope to demystify the intentions and outcomes of the early urban institutional experience by 2 Magdalen Society of Philadelphia{henceforth MSP}, Minutes of Annual Meetings {henceforth AM}, Vol. 1, August 7th 1808. 3 Rules and Regulations for the Internal Government of the Almshouse and House of Employment (Philadelphia: Thomas T. Stiles, 1816), 2. 4 considering the Magdalen Society and the city almshouse in their period of formative antebellum development. The Magdalen Society’s asylum and Guardian of the Poor’s almshouse that form the basis of this study were the melting pot for discussions and debates about social marginality in the early 19th century.4 They represented the semi-private, semi-public stage upon which prevailing opinions and new social heterogeneities were performers. One of the underlying premises in institutional historiography is that an institution is a mirror to the society it is located in and thus, is an important signifier of social attitudes. It has been forcefully argued by Bill Luckin that “an idiosyncratic perspective from within a single institution provides concrete illustrations of such an ideology actually at work”5 Responding to the historiographical push for uncovering "inter-institutional pathways…{and} the biographies of inmates and patients” this thesis will concentrate upon the experience of those inside the Philadelphia almshouse and the Magdalen Society as much as extant primary sources allow. 4 A modern equivalent of the Magdalen ‘asylum’ would be referred to as a ‘half-way house’ today but the quasi-secular, deinstitutionalized meaning this label carries bares little resemblance to the very different world the Magdalen asylum operated in two centuries ago. The asylum has limited associations within the popular imagination as a psychiatric institution, but is, and was, a much broader term. In fact, it is still defined in dictionaries as “a safe or inviolable place of refuge”{Collins English Dictionary, 2003.} and a “secure retreat” {Webster’s College Dictionary, 2010}. Therefore, it will be referred to in this thesis by its own contemporary labeling as, ‘asylum’. 5Bill Luckin, “Towards a Social History of Institutionalization,” Social History 8 (1983): 91. 5 The present study is focused on 1800-1830 because it constituted a seminal time for identity formation and institutional growth in Philadelphia and the wider republic. The city’s population underwent consistent growth through this period: 1800 (81,009), 1810 (111,210), 1820 (135,637) and 1830 (188,797). Rapid immigration and an urban explosion led to demographic doubling in the 1840s.6 The fluid chaos of the 1840s and 1850s has been the subject of exceptionally intriguing studies on the violent contestation of urban identities. 7 However, the antecedents of 19th century social conflict lie in the earlier epoch of 1800-1830, a fruitful period for inquiry into urban social geography. The prolonged economic depression that lasted from 1817-1822 and culminated in the 1819 panic brought a re-evaluation of poor relief and institutional responses to poverty and prostitution. This pivotal period in modern America witnessed deep social self- awareness, swift socioeconomic growth and, the “discovery of the asylum”. 8 w ‘Mind the Gap’ In addition to these quite specific developments centered around the 1820s, the important Weberian idea of Western society’s transformation from personal to impersonal ties (viz. Gemeinschaft to Gesellschaft) established the dominate historical 6 The population rose to 258, 037 in 1840 and then to 408,762 in 1850. US census data, as collated from: Fredric Miller, “Introduction” In Invisible Philadelphia: Community Through Voluntary Organizations, edited by Jean Barth Toll and Mildred S. Gillam, (Philadelphia: Atwater Kent Museum, 1995), 7. 7 The fascinating narrative of immigration-related public violence and contestation of public space is well-covered by David Montgomery and Bruce Laurie. See: David Montgomery, "The shuttle and the cross: Weavers and artisans in the Kensington riots of 1844," Journal of Social History 5 (1972): 411-446. Also: Bruce Laurie, Working people of Philadelphia, 1800-1850, (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1980). 8 David J. Rothman, The Discovery of the Asylum, (Transaction Publishers, 1971). 6 narrative for framing the emergence of modern, industrial nation’s social development in the wider 19th century.9 The tendency of excessive periodization to leave little room for overlapping Gemeinschaft- Gesellschaft transformations undermines the complexity and simultaneity of historical developments. In attempting to recognize the contingency and cohabitation of both Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft in society- rather than their separation- some brilliant scholars have failed to accommodate the interplay of the old and the new in antebellum America.10 The colossal periodization of social change in the may work for political, diplomatic and even economic history textbooks but it does not fit very neatly for American urban social history, especially when considering marginal social groups. With one chapter typically ending in the 1780s and the next beginning in the early Jacksonian 1820s, the resulting gaps in early 19th century historical narratives are problematic and a fuller picture of social change is needed. w Structure After briefly discussing the social control model and its problems forthwith, this study will consider how poverty was socially problematized in chapter 2 through a new ‘moral lens’ in early 19th century reform rhetoric. In chapter 3, attention will
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