Challenging the Legacy: An Interview with Historian Robin Bernstein on William Freeman and the Roots of America’s Prison System

What first drew you to William Freeman’s story and the Auburn Prison System?

I learned about Freeman’s story in a footnote, and I was surprised to learn that he had been forced to work for private companies inside a prison—in New York in 1840. Like many people, I thought that profit-driven prison labor had been invented in the South after the Civil War. I felt compelled to learn more about this history and the Afro-Native teenager who challenged the system.

How does Freeman’s Challenge shed light on the roots of America’s prison system?

We follow William Freeman into the Auburn State Prison, which originated many modern prison practices over 200 years ago. There were factories built into the prison, and William Freeman was forced to work there 12 hours a day. He manufactured animal harnesses that were sold by a private company, while he received no wages. He was a “slave of the state,” to quote one warden.

How did you balance historical facts with telling Freeman’s personal story of resistance?

I was 100% committed to telling only the truth about William Freeman’s life and his brave resistance against the Auburn State Prison. This wasn’t always easy, because there are some questions that the historical evidence can’t answer. Where there was a gap in the evidence, I stated that in the book. The book reads like a novel, but I wanted the reader to understand that every word is true.

In what ways do you see the legacy of Auburn’s profit-driven prison system in today’s criminal justice practices?

Today, prisoners are still forced to work, and in many states they receive no wages. That practice directly grows out of Auburn as experienced by William Freeman. But there’s also a larger issue. In Auburn in the early 1800s, a group of white entrepreneurs came up with the radical new idea that a prison could and should be an economic force. Earlier prisons had existed to punish people, to reform them, or just to get them off the street. But Auburn was different: its prison was established with the goal of stimulating the local economy. Today, that idea is so widespread that it seems like common sense. That’s the legacy of Auburn.

What key message do you hope readers will take away from Freeman’s Challenge?

I want the book to raise a question: why should anyone benefit economically from another person’s incarceration? I want us to hear, today, just how weird and wrong that idea is.

Robin Bernstein is a cultural historian who studies race from the nineteenth century through today. The Dillon Professor of American History, she teaches in the Department of African and African American Studies at Harvard University. Socials: @robinmbernstein; robinbernsteinphd.com