The birth of the Texas prison empire, 1865--1915

At the dawn of the twenty-first century, Texas manages one of the largest and most authoritarian prison systems ever assembled by a democratic government. This dissertation traces the origins of this carceral empire, from the advent of convict leasing at the end of the Civil War to the development of the state's penal-farm infrastructure in the 1910s.;In the troubled decades after emancipation, Texas forged a unique punishment style, cobbling together the remnants of slavery with emergent principles of scientific penology. Although the state initially leased out all of its convicts to the highest bidder, by the 1880s, its leaders had devised a hybrid disciplinary apparatus, one that combined private profit with government oversight and prisoner reformation with forced labor and white supremacy. Select convicts, usually Anglos, served time in industrial penitentiaries, while the majority, largely black and Mexican, toiled on vast sugar and cotton plantations as slaves of the state.;This two-tiered convict lease system proved as controversial as it was profitable. Humanitarian reformers condemned its neglect and abuse, especially of white prisoners. Progressives and radicals exposed corruption rings and assailed the degradation of free labor. Convicts, though they often cooperated with their keepers, also creatively resisted. They escaped, pilfered, rioted, mutilated themselves, and composed fiery exposes.;This dissertation analyzes the triumphs and defeats of these eclectic efforts to change Texas punishment practices. Together, dissidents eventually succeeded in abolishing convict leasing, but Progressives' dreams of a reformatory penitentiary never materialized. Instead, politicians prioritized cost-cutting and racial dominion over prisoner rehabilitation, while subversive convicts catalyzed reforms but ultimately undermined reformers. These factors ensured that Texas's prison farms never strayed from their slaving roots.;As a consequence, most observers regarded Texas as a penological backwater. Amidst a late-twentieth century recrudescence of retributionism, however, Texas has emerged as a national leader. Since the 1970s, its traditions of forced labor, no-frills punishment, and racial control have influenced correctional management around the country. Examining the birth of the Texas prison empire, therefore, encourages us to reconceive the origins and the future of American punishment.