Interview is with Brett J. Derbes, a doctoral candidate in the History Department at Auburn University.
Brett works for the Texas State Historical Association (TSHA) in Austin, Texas, as Managing Editor of the Handbook of Texas.
Contributor:Reconsidering Southern Labor History: Race, Class, and Power
Tell us a about your essay, “Origins of the Prison Industrial Complex: Inmate Labor in the Deep South, 1817-1865”
In the early 1800s state legislators endeavored to create financially self-sustaining penitentiaries that encouraged rehabilitation through religion and labor. An examination of inmate labor in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana highlights a controversial aspect of free labor within a slave society. The convicts provided a confined, reliable, and inexpensive workforce, but attracted criticism from local artisans and mechanics’ organizations. The penitentiary workshops that emerged in the antebellum years and thrived during the Civil War preceded the expansive prison industrial complex that exists today.
What sparked your interest in labor history?
Early in my graduate studies I found an article that mentioned un-dyed Confederate uniforms manufactured during the Civil War by inmates at the Texas State Penitentiary in Huntsville, which led me to investigate the activities of prisoners in other southern states. My research eventually focused on inmate labor at state penitentiaries during the Antebellum Era and Civil War. I’m fascinated by the life and work of men, women, and children in the early prison system of the United States.
Why do you think that the study of labor history is important today?
Constant change within the workplace and workforce requires historians to research, document, and present their findings as part of an overall effort to learn from the past, improve the present, and prepare for the future. Tensions related to various aspects of organized labor and working conditions, wages, hours, and laws remain at the center of personal and political discussions. Prison reform is a current topic of national debate and the caveat of inmate labor’s role within rehabilitation should be further examined. I hope that my research will provide valuable information on lesser-known historical figures and further our understanding of the provenance of the prison industrial complex in the United States.
What are you working on at the moment?
I’m a doctoral candidate at Auburn University and nearing completion of my dissertation focused on the inmate labor at southern state penitentiaries from 1800-1865. The project began as a study of the activities and contributions of the existing southern penitentiaries during the Civil War, but expanded to include the establishment and expansion of the prisons in Virginia, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas. I hope to improve and publish the manuscript, as well as create an online database of the prisoners at the penitentiaries for further historical research.