2001 Gest Fellow
Gabrielle Gottlieb

Abstract, "'The Punishment of a Few' for 'the Preservation of Multitudes': Capital Punishment, Penal Reform and Social Order in late 18th-century Philadelphia"

The paper analyzes capital punishment in relation to the penal reform movement in Philadelphia in the 1780s and 1790s. After the Revolution, Philadelphians engaged in an intensive debate about the nature of the penal system and possible alternative penalties to executions. This debate led to a ten-year "moratorium" on capital punishment. By 1800, however, the threat of foreign revolutions and domestic insurrections led to the renewed implementation of the death penalty in Philadelphia.

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