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To City and Town Officers…Jail Cell or Lock-Up

East Berlin, Connecticut: The Berlin Iron Bridge Co., [1870–1900]. Illustrated broadside, 48 x 31 cm.

A rare broadside advertising a jail cell for purchase by municipalities, a sideline of the Berlin Iron Bridge Company.

In advertising this jail cell, made of iron or steel (“as may be required”), the company notes: “City and Town authorities are often seriously embarrassed to provide for the temporary confinement of prisoners charged with petty crimes, owing to the lack of a proper place in which to confine them.” Responding to this want, the manufacturer has designed a jail cell or lock-up at an affordable cost. The illustration shows two cells of the company’s standard size (four ft. wide, seven ft. high, and seven ft. long); a locked-up gent stares blankly out of the cell on the left. These cells are touted as “a perfect means of disposing, temporarily, of this class of criminals.” Also covered are details on customization; design of the cells; the “tight” partition between cells (such that no communication between the prisoners is possible); ventilation; lattice bars at the top of the cell to prevent suicide by hanging; self-locking doors; how the cells are shipped in sections and assembled, and so on.

The Berlin Iron Bridge Company (est. 1868) of Berlin, Connecticut constructed hundreds of iron bridges and buildings across the eastern U.S. before being acquired by the American Bridge Company in 1900.

WorldCat records one copy.

CONDITION: Good, old folds, old tape stain on verso bleeding through somewhat at title.

Item #5304

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