Carceral Dietaries and the Use of Food as a Penal Tool in the Early American Republic

This paper considers “victualling” and “provisioning” in sites of confinement in the early republic and how the actions of administrators, legislators, and keepers around prisoner “dietaries” reflect sociocultural understandings of need, morality, criminality, and punishment. Which incarcerated people were fed by the state, and who was left to fend for themselves? How was “bread and water” used to punish and coerce inmates’ behavior? How did understandings of hard labor and caloric expenditure factor into decisions about menus in carceral institutions? John Stanton Gould’s 1852 report on “food and diet” and “dietetical regimens” in “almshouses, prisons, and hospitals” collated and compared institutional regimens. I consider Gould’s data alongside contemporary reports of prison and jail conditions and inmate-generated literature like Coffey’s 1823 “Inside Out” to explore how hunger and specific food provisions were used as penal tools differentially, based on conceptions of class, criminality, and institutional function.