Inside the Workhouse

This chapter explores the regime of discipline and punishment that reigned in the San Bernardino workhouse and analyzes the role played by the band and music academy to help maintain that discipline. All aspects of life at the workhouse were aimed at instilling moral rectitude and increasing productivity at the in-house workshops, where inmates were subjected to forced labor. Music played a key role in helping to maintain a regime of discipline within the workhouse, structuring the working day and accompanying the ordered movements of inmates through the workhouse. The music academy and, from 1856, the band were used as instruments aimed at both disciplining and rewarding the best-behaving and most talented inmates.

Aesthetics · Art · Economic growth · Economics · Political science · Poorhouse · Productivity · Punishment (psychology) · Social science · Sociology · American Constitutional Law and Politics · American History and Culture · History · Law · Psychology · Race, History, and American Society · Social Psychology · History and criticism · Music · Music, spanish · Social aspects · Social life and customs