engineering

Tennessee State Prison

Tennessee State Prison is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Tennessee State Prison rather than just read about it. In short: Tennessee State Prison is a former correctional facility located six miles west of downtown Nashville, Tennessee, on Centennial Boulevard. It opened in 1898 and has been closed since 1992 because of overcrowding concerns.

Key takeaways

Tennessee State Prison belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Tennessee State Prison to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Tennessee State Prison from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Tennessee State Prison is a former correctional facility located six miles west of downtown Nashville, Tennessee, on Centennial Boulevard. It opened in 1898 and has been closed since 1992 because of overcrowding concerns. The facility was severely damaged by an EF3 tornado in the tornado outbreak of March 2–3, 2020.

History

First structure (1831–1898) The first Tennessee State Penitentiary, located on what is now 15th Avenue between Church Street and Charlotte Avenue, became operational on January 1, 1831 with 200 cells, a warden's residence, and a hospital. Modeled after the Auburn Penitentiary in both discipline and design, the prison was the first of its kind in Tennessee and the South. Inmates were subject to policies and practices championed by the Auburn model, such as "during the day the prisoners, with downcast eyes, labored silently together in workshops, while at night they slept alone in separate cells. Under no circumstances could they communicate with one another, and only when necessity demanded could they receive letters or calls from relatives and friends." The prison housed both men and women, with the first male inmate registered in 1831 and the first female inmate registered in 1840. In 1863, the Union Army took control of the penitentiary and used it as a military prison. Under Union occupation, the prison population tripled and conditions worsened. Convicts were leased to the federal government by the Occupation Government of Tennessee to help repay their mounting debts. Among the prisoners held during this time was Mark R. Cockrill, a Confederate sympathizer whose West Nashville property would later be purchased for the construction of the new prison. Following the Civil War, the percentage of black inmates in the state of Tennessee increased dramatically, from roughly 5% of the prison's population prior to the Civil War to about 62% in 1869. The proportion of black women in prison was significantly higher to black men in relation to whites, with all female prisoners in Tennessee in 1868 being African American women. Every convict was expected to defray a portion of the cost of incarceration by performing physical labor. Inmates worked up to 16 hours a day for meager rations and unheated, unventilated sleeping quarters. The 1840s saw a rise in the use of prison labor, with inmates being employed in the construction of the state capitol building in Nashville. Prison labor was so lucrative that the state prison became a revenue-generating system that came in direct competition with free laborers. The State also contracted with private companies to operate factories inside the prison walls using convict labor. In 1870 the state penitentiary reached a deal with the Tennessee Coal, Iron, and Railroad Company, establishing the first convict-leasing program in the country. This only added to growing frustrations among free laborers who staged a strike against the Tennessee Coal, Iron, and Railroad Company in 1871. Though the effort was ultimately defeated, it was the first of many revolts against the convict-leasing system. The state also contracted with private companies to operate factories inside the prison walls using convict labor. A women's wing was opened in 1892 but overcrowding soon forced the men and women to be housed together.

Second structure (1898–1992) The design for a proposed new prison called for the construction of a Gothic, fortress-like structure. The second Tennessee prison contained 800 small cells, each designed to house a single inmate. In addition, an administration building and other smaller buildings for offices, warehouses, and factories were built within the 20 ft high (6.1 m), 3 ft thick (0.91 m) rock walls. The plan also provided for a working farm outside the walls and mandated a separate system for younger offenders to isolate them from older, hardened criminals. A separate women's wing was built on the northwest corner of the grounds that housed the female inmates who worked on the farm as well. The new prison was built by Enoch Guy Elliott, who was married to Lady Ida Beasley Elliott, a missionary to Burma. Governor Peter Turney made Enoch Guy Elliott the chief warden of the old prison. Enoch used mostly prison labor to build the new prison. Construction costs for this second Tennessee State Penitentiary exceeded US$500,000 (US$12.3 million in 2007 dollars), not including the price of the land. The prison's 800 cells opened to receive prisoners on February 12, 1898, and that day admitted 1,403 prisoners, creating immediate overcrowding. To a greater or lesser extent, overcrowding persisted throughout the next century. The original Tennessee State Penitentiary on Church Street was demolished in 1898, and salvageable materials were used in the construction of outbuildings at the new facility, creating a physical link from 1831 to the present.

Several notable incidents have occurred at the second Tennessee State Penitentiary. On August 4, 1902, sixteen prisoners blew out the end of one wing of the prison and escaped; one of the inmates was shot and killed by guards. Two of those who escaped were never recaptured. Later, a group of inmates seized control of the segregated white wing and held it for eighteen hours before surrendering. In 1907 several convicts commandeered a switch engine and drove it through a prison gate. In 1938 inmates staged a mass escape. Several serious fires ignited at the penitentiary, including one that destroyed the main dining room. Riots occurred in 1975 and 1985. In 1989, the Tennessee Department of Correction opened a new penitentiary, the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution at Nashville. The second Tennessee State Penitentiary closed in June 1992. As part of the settlement in a class action suit, Grubbs v. Bradley (1982), the Federal Court issued a permanent injunction in 1993, prohibiting the Tennessee Department of Correction from ever again housing inmates at the Tennessee State Prison. After it was closed, the former prison was used as a filming location, but the interior was declared off-limits in 2011 due to asbestos. The building was severely damaged by an EF3 tornado in the tornado outbreak of March 2–3, 2020.

In media

Films The following films include scenes that were filmed at the Tennessee State Prison:

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Tennessee State Prison

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Tennessee State Prison claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Tennessee State Prison before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Tennessee State Prison ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Tennessee State Prison

In research: Tennessee State Prison appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Tennessee State Prison in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Tennessee State Prison is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1898 establishments in Tennessee, 1992 disestablishments in Tennessee, Buildings and structures completed in 1896, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Tennessee State Prison outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Tennessee State Prison in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Tennessee State Prison means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Tennessee State Prison out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Tennessee State Prison in simple terms?

Why does Tennessee State Prison matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Tennessee State Prison?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Tennessee State Prison.