'Cold-head Bath" from Memorandum of a late visit to the Auburn penitentiary; :prepared for the Philadelphia Society for the Alleviation of the Miseries of Public Prisons by Frederick A. Packard. Printed by order of the Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons. Philadelphia, : J. Harding, printer., 1842.Program

Friday, April 3

2:00-4:30 p.m. Guided tours of Eastern State Penitentiary

22nd Street & Fairmount Avenue
(free to registered conference participants)

4:30-5:00 p.m. Registration

The Library Company of Philadelphia, 1314 Locust Street

5:00-5:15 p.m. Welcomes

John C. Van Horne, Library Company of Philadelphia
Daniel K. Richter, McNeil Center for Early American Studies
Michele Lise Tarter, The College of New Jersey
Richard Bell, University of Maryland

5:15-6:00 p.m. Roundtable: Raise Every Voice: Research and Interpretation at Eastern State Penitentiary

Chair: Jennifer Janofsky, Gwynedd Mercy College

Participants: Andrea J. Reidell, National Archives Mid
Atlantic Region
Jennifer L. Coval, Eastern State Penitentiary

6:00-8:00 p.m. Reception

Sponsored by The Library Company of Philadelphia

Saturday, April 4

McNeil Center for Early American Studies
3355 Woodland Walk (34th and Sansom Streets)

8:00-8:30 a.m. Registration & Coffee

8:30-10:00 a.m. Session I: Politicized Voices

Chair: John C. McWilliams, Penn State–DuBois

How Jails Fueled Early American Conspiracy Panics
Jason Sharples, Princeton University

Gender, Desire, and Dependency: Prisoner Petitions from Walnut Street Jail, 1787-1789
Jennifer Manion, Connecticut College

“The Horrors of this Far-Famed Penitentiary”: Discipline, Defiance, and Death during Ann Carson’s Incarcerations in Philadelphia’s Walnut Street Prison
Daniel Williams, Texas Christian University

Commentary: William A. Pencak, Pennsylvania State University

10:00-10:15 a.m. Break

10:15-11:45 a.m. Session II: Literary Voices

Chair: Max Cavitch, University of Pennsylvania

Writing Prisoners and the Eighteenth-Century Communications Circuit
Jodi Schorb, University of Florida

Continental Captives: Floating Prisons and the Taxonomies of Exchange, 1776-1783
Judith Irwin-Mulcahy, Wake Forest University

Harry Hawser’s Fate: Poetry from “A Living Tomb”
Caleb Smith, Yale University

Commentary: Ivy Schweitzer, Dartmouth College

11:45-1:00 p.m. Lunch (on your own)

1:00-2:30 p.m. Session III: Almshouse Voices

Chair: Daniel K. Richter, University of Pennsylvania

Survival and Surveillance: The Working Poor Confront the Large-Scale Almshouse in Boston and Salem, 1760-1840
Cornelia Dayton, University of Connecticut
Sharon Salinger, University of California, Irvine

Incarcerated Innocents: Inmates, Conditions, and Survival Strategies in Philadelphia’s Almshouse and Workhouse
Simon Newman, University of Glasgow
Billy G. Smith, Montana State University

“Those insolent hardened Husseys go on dispensing all Rule & Order here”: Women with Venereal Disease in the Philadelphia Almshouse
Jacqueline Cahif, University of Glasgow

Commentary: Susan E. Klepp, Temple University

2:30-2:45 p.m. Break

2:45-4:15 p.m. Session IV: Enslaved Voices

Chair: Stephanie McCurry, University of Pennsylvania

“The Floor was Stained with the Blood of a Slave”: Crime and Punishment in the Old South
Matthew Clavin, University of West Florida

Race, Crime, and Nation: Literary Apprehensions
Jeannine DeLombard, University of Toronto

The Netherworlds of David Walker and Edgar Allan Poe
Erin Forbes, Princeton University

Commentary: Marion Rust, University of Kentucky

4:15-4:30 p.m. Break

4:30-5:45 p.m. Roundtable: Closing Voices

Co-chairs: Michele Lise Tarter, The College of New Jersey
Richard Bell, University of Maryland

Participants: Philip F. Gura, University of North Carolina
Michael Meranze, University of California, Los
Angeles
Leslie Patrick, Bucknell University

5:45-7:30 p.m. Closing Reception