Discarded Treasures of an Infelicitous Past

The goal of this thesis is to generate a set of standards for the preservation and adaptive reuse of Progressive Era Jails (roughly 1880s-1930s) in the United States. It looks briefly at the history of penal reforms, providing the reader with a basic knowledge of the penal system in order to better understand the findings and recommendations presented. Adaptive reuse cases of jails are discussed, followed by a detailed look at Progressive Era jails and their character-defining features, program layout, circulation and supervision components, and structural integrity. Based on these four basic principles, preservation recommendations are given and implemented into a design for the adaptive ruse of the 1906 York County Jail in York County, Pennsylvania.