Curious Punishments of Bygone Days

Curious Punishments of Bygone Days is a book by Alice Morse Earle, first published in 1896. The work collects the odd, often brutal instruments and public penalties that governed behaviour in earlier centuries, especially in colonial America, and presents them in a lively, readable style.

Earle — best known for her social histories of everyday life — draws on court records, newspapers, diaries and contemporary accounts to describe stocks and pillories, ducking stools, branks and gags, the scarlet letter, whipping posts, branding and other forms of public humiliation and corporal punishment.

The book sits at the intersection of social history and legal and cultural study: it entertains with curious anecdotes while also illuminating how communities enforced moral norms and the role of public spectacle in punishment. Readers interested in colonial America, penal practices, cultural history, or historical curiosities will find it both informative and oddly compelling. The plain, detail-rich accounts make the volume useful to historians and casual readers alike, who are interested in the development of social control, public shaming, and early American justice.