{"title":"Conversions of Jacob Hodges: Religion, Race, and Labor in Prison Reform Literature","authors":"Caleb Smith","doi":"10.1353/aq.2024.a921578","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: Born to a free Black family, Jack Hodges (ca. 1763–1842) was arrested for the murder of a white man in 1819 and served a term at New York's Auburn State Prison, the world-famous prototype of industrial prison discipline, where he experienced a life-altering Christian conversion. Also known as Jacob Hodges, he became one of the nineteenth century's most famous incarcerated African Americans, appearing in popular crime writing, children's books, reform society reports, and spiritual biographies. Today, however, Hodges is unacknowledged, even among scholars of race and prison studies. My interdisciplinary essay advances both historical and interpretive claims. I reconstruct Hodges's life in the crucible of evangelical Protestantism, racial assimilation, and industrial market capitalism, which worked together, I argue, to shape the ideology of the modern prison system. I also analyze the vivid fantasies about Hodges that circulated in reformist literature. Unlike the majority of captives, whose struggles left only faint traces in the archives, Hodges was neither the object of dehumanizing violence nor the subject of coldly rational surveillance; he was listened to, admired, and treated with sympathy. As a case study in evangelical reformism's sentimental, possessive style of love, the literature about Hodges poses special challenges and opportunities for abolitionist reading.","PeriodicalId":51543,"journal":{"name":"AMERICAN QUARTERLY","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5000,"publicationDate":"2024-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"AMERICAN QUARTERLY","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1353/aq.2024.a921578","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"HUMANITIES, MULTIDISCIPLINARY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Abstract: Born to a free Black family, Jack Hodges (ca. 1763–1842) was arrested for the murder of a white man in 1819 and served a term at New York's Auburn State Prison, the world-famous prototype of industrial prison discipline, where he experienced a life-altering Christian conversion. Also known as Jacob Hodges, he became one of the nineteenth century's most famous incarcerated African Americans, appearing in popular crime writing, children's books, reform society reports, and spiritual biographies. Today, however, Hodges is unacknowledged, even among scholars of race and prison studies. My interdisciplinary essay advances both historical and interpretive claims. I reconstruct Hodges's life in the crucible of evangelical Protestantism, racial assimilation, and industrial market capitalism, which worked together, I argue, to shape the ideology of the modern prison system. I also analyze the vivid fantasies about Hodges that circulated in reformist literature. Unlike the majority of captives, whose struggles left only faint traces in the archives, Hodges was neither the object of dehumanizing violence nor the subject of coldly rational surveillance; he was listened to, admired, and treated with sympathy. As a case study in evangelical reformism's sentimental, possessive style of love, the literature about Hodges poses special challenges and opportunities for abolitionist reading.
期刊介绍:
American Quarterly represents innovative interdisciplinary scholarship that engages with key issues in American Studies. The journal publishes essays that examine American societies and cultures, past and present, in global and local contexts. This includes work that contributes to our understanding of the United States in its diversity, its relations with its hemispheric neighbors, and its impact on world politics and culture. Through the publication of reviews of books, exhibitions, and diverse media, the journal seeks to make available the broad range of emergent approaches to American Studies.